


homemade dynamite

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Jughead Jones, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gratuitous Pop-Culture References, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 01, Self-Discovery, hearing impaired Jughead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12098040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: He has nothing to write. It's like the words are all stuck inside him, pushing and pushing but they just—can't get out. Like build up in a pipe. Empty bottles piled in the trash can. Empty empty empty. He has nothing important to say, nothing to wrap up The Story or keep it going, so one night he gives up and opens a new, blank document.In the document, he starts:I think there's something wrong with me.or: a ‘jughead half-way joins a gang, finds himself, makes friends, has an argument with but ultimately finds a kind-of boyfriend, too’ story in five parts





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me: posts smth  
> the rest of the world, probably: we get it, u like the serpents, u want jug to find himself, u think fred is the best dad ever, _we get it_
> 
> anyway, this is a mess that started as literally just me retaliating against the excessive amount of betty/bughead in the southside serpents tag on every form of social media ever including this one, and turned into smth way longer than i ever planned on??? this is like,,,,,,version 2 of my self-indulgent take on post-s1. if s2 turns out to be bad this is how it all happened i swear

 

**i. introduction**

 

People always say to start your stories in the middle. The middle of the action, the middle of the conflict. Don’t spend the first half giving a long explanation, don’t lay everything out all at once. The end should be a new beginning. The middle should be the beginning of the end.

No one’s story really starts until the middle.

The town’s story starts with the middle of the summer. The fourth of July.

Where were you that morning? is the question of the day. When you found out? It’s just horrible, isn’t it—something like this happening to someone so young. Did you know him well? I knew him. I can’t imagine what the family must be going through. Such a good kid, so promising, such a tragedy.

It’s the first Big Thing to happen in years. In decades. The kind of Thing that’ll spread beyond the town’s borders. The kind of Thing that’ll haunt. Never ever leave this place alone.

Jughead’s story starts with the fourth of July, too. He types out the first words the day before school starts, fingers warm against the hum of his laptop.

The thing is, it’s the only part of his story that matters. Something Big. Something people will want to read about—because people have a morbid fascination with tragedy. They thrive off of it, even though they pretend not to. It’s why they watch sad movies. Horror movies. Read sad books. Shakespeare, if you’re that kind of person.

The world is obsessed with tragedy. Someone will want to read about the small town murder of a beloved high school student, killed before his prime. If not, he can always just delete it. Find something else. He’s always been good at adapting, even if he hates change.

He thought his story would end with the Story, when the killer was caught. He would find something else, and his story would start again, but something like this never really has an end; the killer is caught and the killer kicks the bucket all by himself and it’s over, and then Fred Andrews is shot, so it’s not over, and his father’s gang offers him a brand new family, so that’s over, either, even though his caseworker closed his file and moved on.

Archie shakes against him in the hospital bathroom, so that’s not over, either. Things like these are never really over. It’s why people still have questions after finishing a book. What comes next? You can never write everything, because you’d be writing forever.

“I’m scared,” Archie gasps into his shoulder; Jughead had helped him roll up his sleeve to cover up all the red, but there’s still a stain on his cast. He hopes he’ll get it re-wrapped. Maybe they can cover it with white-out. “I’m scared.”

Me too, Jughead doesn’t say. He just pulls him closer instead, impossibly closer. It feels like Archie wants to shrink away, to climb into someone else and hide. Jughead would let him, if he could.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, even though Betty or Veronica or even Kevin should be saying this instead; even though Fred should be saying this.

Archie says nothing else. They stand there, Jughead’s back digging into the counter of the sink, until Archie’s worn himself out. His hands don’t stop shaking, but Jughead’s heart won’t stop beating out of his chest, either, so that’s fine.

 

“I hope you’ll like it here,” his foster mother says, old eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles.

It’s his second time meeting her, his first time bringing his suitcase full of everything he owns worth owning up the stairs with him. His shoes make a different sound on the carpet than they did on the trailer floor, or the wood of the Andrews’ kitchen.

“Thank you,” he says, trying for a smile of his own, “I think I will.”

The woman smiles at him again, “Dinner will be ready in an hour or so. Make yourself at home.” she says, and then she’s shutting the door softly behind her, leaving him in his brand new bedroom.

He sets his backpack on the bed in the corner of the room. Puts his suitcase on the floor next to it. Takes a look around.

There's a window looking out onto the street. They're only a few blocks from Southside High. If he squints hard and pretends, he imagines he can see Sunnyside, the dots of the various trailers. Maybe even his dad’s empty one.

It's a nice room, decently sized. A step up from the school closet. Maybe not a step up from Archie's room, because there's no tv or blue walls or posters, and there's no Archie, but he can make do. Maybe he'll ask if he can put something up. He won't ask to paint the walls, because he's been here like twenty minutes and he doesn't wanna seem ungrateful. It's a nice room, after all, and he doesn’t know what color he would ask for anyways.

After he's memorized the view and taken note of the closet along one wall, he shrugs his shoes off and settles on the bed and digs his laptop out of his backpack.

He opens his story document, stares at it for a moment, and checks his phone. Archie promised to text him later, let him know how Fred is doing, but he hasn't gotten anything yet. He wonders if he forgot.

 _After_ , he starts typing, realizes he has nothing to say after ‘after’, and deletes it.

 _Even though the mystery had been solved,_ he starts again, and stops. Deletes. His fingers hover over the keyboard, and he realizes he doesn’t have a single goddamn thing to say right now. He hasn't had a single goddamn thing to say all week, nothing worth writing down. He doesn't want to immortalized Fred’s suffering, or Archie's anxiety.

He spends the next forty minutes alternating between checking his phone, scrolling through his Netflix queue, and squinting at the aggressively blank screen until his foster mother knocks on the door to tell him that dinner’s ready.

He sighs, closing his laptop. He feels a buzz against the sheets, and looks over to see his phone light up.

 _Hey_ , stares up at him, Archie's name on the screen next to it.

 **_Hey_ ** , he types back, and then shoves his phone in his pocket because he doesn't wanna keep his brand new parents waiting.

 _How's the new place?_ he reads after dinner, curled up under the sheets.

 **_It's good. Very homey_ **.

 _Homey_?

**_Knickknacks, pictures of kids who don't live here anymore, that kinda thing_ **

_Like ‘kids who grew up’ or ‘people who are dead’??_

Jughead huffs a laugh at that.

**_First one, probably. Maybe both?? Their kids are in college, I think. One almost got into Yale_ **

_Fucking yale???? Damn_

**_Ik, they talked abt it for like ten minutes_ **

_U better step up ur game jug, idk if you can top Yale_

**_Fuck u_ **

Archie sends back a :P because the emoji version just doesn't do it justice. Jughead feels himself smile.

 **_How's your dad?_ ** He types out carefully. He hesitates for a moment, and then sends it.

He watches those three damn dots for a solid minute, before Archie replies with a: _he’s getting better_

Another minute later: _he was awake a lot today_

_He asked abt you actually_

Jughead blinks at that, vaguely surprised.

**_He did??? Why?_ **

_He wanted to know how you’re settling in and stuff, said he wanted a full report on ur foster parents_

Jughead feel something warm settle into his chest at the thought of Fred using a few of his precious moments awake asking after him.

**_Tell him they're v nice and that the mom makes better food than him_ **

A minute or two later: _he said if u hate his cooking that much ur not allowed to eat his food anymore_

**_Tell him that's what pop’s is for_ **

_He said good point_

He actually laughs a little, imagines Fred smiling; he imagines him smiling weakly, laying in a hospital bed, and doesn't laugh again.

He checks the time instead, to distract himself, and types out: **_go home and go to bed it's like 11_ **

_11 is like 8 pm for us teens_

**_It's like midnight for ppl who have been up since 6 am and have school tomorrow_ **

A long moment, before: _if I go to bed you have to go to bed too_

**_Ughhhhhhhhh_ **

:/

**_Fine_ **

_Night jug :P_

**_Night asshole_ **

 

Across the table from him, FP sits, arms folded, fingers tapping a rhythm against the metal. It echoes. The thing is to keep your hands above the tabletop because the other side has a god-only-knows-how-old band-aid stuck to the top of it and Jughead accidentally touched it his first time here.

“How’s school?” FP asks.

“Fine,” Jughead says, “How’s prison?”

“Fine,” his dad echoes back, vague smile on his face; when the moment lingers: “How’s Fred?”

“Fine,” Jughead says, deliberately simple. And then, when FP shifts in his seat, “You can call him yourself, if you wanna know.”

“Nah,” he says quickly, running a hand through his hair, “He’s got enough to worry about.”

“I doubt he has much going on in a hospital bed. Probably has about as much free time as you do.”

“Like a match made in heaven,” FP says, sarcastic and quiet enough that Jughead isn’t sure he was supposed to hear it.

“He asked about you,” he offers once his dad says nothing else and his tapping gets to be too much.

“He did?”

He didn’t, but Jughead knows that if his dad waits around for Fred to call, nothing’s ever gonna happen. A hospital room is a lot like a jail cell, too, so Jughead says, “Yeah. He asked where you were, and I told him you were just too busy to visit.”

“Did he laugh?”

“He did,” Jughead nods, and has to look away at how quietly pleased his dad seems. Young and old all at once.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s just as transparent himself.

 

There’s a boy in Jughead’s calculus class, Scott or something, who skips half the time to get high in the locker room and then sleep for thirty minutes. When Jughead asks why calculus, he says he’s actually great at it, so he can afford to miss the lessons without falling behind. Ricky, the boy who’d showed up at his trailer with a dog as a peace-offering, asks why he skips physics, too, if he gets shit grades in that class, and he just laughs and says _you can’t win everything._

Jughead likes him, because he’s lactose intolerant so he lets Jughead steal the chocolate milk off his lunch tray everyday. He never knows why the hell the guy always grabs milk if he physically can’t drink it, but he’s not about to tell him to stop.

The thing is to smile loose and hit the table when you laugh, let yourself melt into the scene. Here, it’s easy to melt instead of sticking out. Ricky gels his hair back like something out of a 50’s greaser movie, and there’s a girl across the room who has so many colors in her hair it would make a rainbow feel self-conscious, so Jughead can afford to wear the same hat he’s been wearing since he was a kid.

“Why’re you wearing a crown if you’re not the king of anything?” Scott had asked once.

“Who says I’m not?” he’d thrown back lazily. The thing is to not jump every time something pokes at you.

“Your bank account,” Toni had offered. He liked Toni. She was smart and sarcastic and didn't take shit from anyone. Reminded him of Veronica.

“What bank account?” he’d said, and they had laughed, and that had been the end of that. Calculus boy had offered him a cigarette in the courtyard after school, and Jughead had taken it and slipped it into his jacket pocket and now he got an extra chocolate milk everyday and let calc boy steal his fries every once in awhile, so that was something good to come out of that.

The thing is that no one really gives a fuck. They have to walk through a metal detector to get into the school, but calc boy still manages to do his shit every other day. Walks in and out smelling like weed and god knows what else. Brady the soccer player slashed the football captain’s tires last week, but no one called the police or anything because everyone thinks he's just a sociopath and he does that kinda thing all the time. Jughead decides he'll always just walk to school.

“Yo, Jug,” Ricky says after fourth period, catching him by the shoulder in the hallway, “Me and Toni and them are gonna go to the QT just outside of town after school. You wanna come?”

“I don't have money,” he points out, opening his locker but not shrugging his arm off just yet.

“Slushies on Scotty. He lost a bet.”

“What bet?”

“Said he could beat Toni at arm wrestling,” he says, grinning, “He was high as shit, and he's got no upper body strength.”

Jughead smiles vaguely at the mental image. He considers, for a moment, and says, “Sure. I love free shit.”

 

Jughead spends a solid half hour on Archie's bedroom floor, staring at his computer screen, watching the mouse blink back at him. He spends another half hour the night after that, spread out on his new bed, the artificial light burning his eyes.

He has nothing. Clifford is dead. The murder has been solved. That should be the end of it. Fred was shot, but he's okay. Archie might not be. Jughead doesn't know if he is.

He has nothing to write. It's like the words are all stuck inside him, pushing and pushing but they just—can't get out. Like build up in a pipe. Empty bottles piled in the trash can. Empty empty empty.

He has nothing important to say, nothing to wrap up The Story or keep it going, so one night he gives up and opens a new, blank document.

In the document, he starts: _I think there's something wrong with me._

He stops. Stares, thumb hovering over the backspace, but can't bring himself to delete it. It's the only sentence on the page, and it glares back at him, accusing.

 _I think there's something wrong with me,_ he rereads, and then, _I don't want things I'm supposed to want. Sometimes I want too much. I want to look and touch but I don't know if I want to kiss. I think there's a hole in my chest where my heart should be._

That's all he has right now, so he saves the doc, untitled, and shuts his laptop, heart racing. Picks up his phone.

To Archie, he writes: how do you know you're missing something if you never had it in the first place?

He deletes that, and instead types out: **_I think my physics teacher is an alien_ **

Three minutes later: _I was gonna tell u to go to bed but now I'm interested_

**_Do u want the short explanation or the long one?_ **

_Long_

_Need a distraction_

Me too, he starts to write. Deletes it. Instead, he writes: **_buckle up Andrews you're in for the distraction of a lifetime_ **

He spends the next thirty five minutes outlining exactly why he's certain Mr Waters is not from this planet. His hands shake the whole time. He doesn't know why he's afraid, but his heart just won't stop fucking racing.

(Later, all impulse, he scrolls through his contacts, types: what does it mean when u kiss someone and feel p much nothing?

Toni replies about five minutes later: _it means you don’t wanna kiss that person obv_

Another minute later: why, who’d you kiss and feel nothing for??

Jughead hesitates: _a girl at my old school_

why’d you kiss her if you didn’t want to? Jughead reads.

He thinks, for a long moment, about how he had been so sure it was what he was supposed to do, that of course it was what he was supposed to do. It’s what Archie would have done, probably, if he like Betty that way. It’s what anyone else would’ve done.

 _I don’t know,_ he types out. Deletes. Types out again, and hits send. _I don’t know._ )

 

He takes to wearing the jacket at school on Mondays and Wednesdays, because Brady the sociopath soccer player has afterschool practice on Mondays and Wednesdays and Jughead doesn't really wanna interact with him directly. He’s learned that the jacket is a pretty good way to keep people from giving him shit.

The thing is to walk like you aren't trying to hide in it. In the months he's been here, he's never once seen Ricky without his serpents jacket. He wouldn't be surprised if the guy slept in it. If nothing else, he can admire the dedication to aesthetic. He doesn't wear it like he's hiding in it, but sometimes Jughead wonders if that's what he's doing.

It doesn't matter. He probably won't get around to asking. No reason to ask questions that could easily be turned onto himself. He's worn this damn hat since he was like seven. It clashes a little, with the jacket, but he's not willing to take it off yet. He thinks the hearing aid would clash with it even more.

The thing is to wear a snake on your back like you're proud of it. Like you're confident. To walk like you own the place. Like you're finally the king of something even though you have a father on his way to jail and about thirty dollars to your name. Rebel Without A Cause-era James Dean, even. Minus the crying and watching a kid drive off a cliff.

The thing is to not wear it to Archie's. He has enough on his plate without dealing with all of Jughead's shit, too.

The thing is that one Wednesday afternoon, Archie is waiting at the gate of Southside High, obnoxious letterman jacket and all. Archie's eyes find his almost immediately. Jughead feels his heart drop.

“Arch, hey,” he says when he reaches him, “What’re you doing here?”

He feels Archie's eyes flit up and down, linger on the leather, before he looks back up at him, “I just…wanted to say hi.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow, “Doesn't practice start soon?”

“It was cancelled today.”

“For what?”

“Okay, so it wasn't cancelled. Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

“We’re going to the movies in two days. And you just saw me like last week.”

Archie huffs, glancing around like he's afraid someone is watching; Jughead knows some people are watching, but that's because Archie is projecting himself in bright blue and gold, like the graffiti all over the walls, and that’s made to catch people's eyes.

“Just—come with me for a sec, please?”

“Okay,” he says slowly. Opens his mouth to say more but Archie looks so serious about it that he lets him take him by the arm and pull him to Fred’s truck parked on the road in front of the school. He's glad Brady the sociopath soccer player is busy at practice right now.

“What's up?” Jughead asks once the passenger door has swung shut behind him. The seat is cold, even through his jeans.

Archie licks his lips the way he does when he's deciding. Drums his fingers on the steering wheel and says “The shooter,”

“Archie,” Jughead says immediately, but Archie shakes his head.

“No, I know who it is this time.”

They've been stuck on this for months: Archie sure he knew who it was, he recognized the eyes through the mask, knew the sound of his voice and he had him. It would die out a week or so later when nothing came of it, Archie crashing back down like the fall of an adrenaline rush. Fred is out of the hospital, now, recovered enough to walk with crutches; Jughead had thought he was done with it.

“Arch,” he tries again, but Archie grabs at his arm, at the jacket.

“Jug,” he says, eyes wide and serious, “I think it was a Serpent.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment to get me through this lit essay i put off writing and also to get me to actually finish this damn fic, i have most of it planned out but i was too impatient to finish it all before i posted this chapter lmao
> 
> (also come hmu on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) to talk abt this garbage show)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Later that night, he opens that new doc, still untitled, and writes: _I want you to meet all of them, even though one of them dresses like he thinks he’s Danny fucking Zuko. I want to go to the movies like we used to, even though the drive-in is dead now so it won’t really be the same. You hate horror so we can see some dumb romantic comedy, and you’ll laugh at all the jokes even though they’re shitty._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: y is the southside portrayed as Bad bc the ppl who live there are poorer and subsequently more prone to addiction, etc?  
> me to me: capitalism 
> 
> (warning for a brief mention of another teacher being a creep)

 

**ii. rising action**

 

He doesn't actually go to the bar very often, because he hates the smell of most alcohol most of the time, and he doesn't plan on getting drunk, anyway, so what's the point of being at a bar? Julian, a guy who lives in the trailer park Jughead used to live in, spends a good amount of his time there, when he's not taking community college classes or visiting his mom - who does not frequent the bar very often because she's a smart old woman who used to pat Jughead on the head and say he had more brains than all of her kids combined and then offer him leftover rice, because they always had leftover rice. 

It's very loud at the bar, too, which makes it hard to do anything like write or homework. They actually have a few live snakes hanging around, because they're that committed to their brand. Ricky comes more often than Toni does, so Jughead tagged along today because he had nothing better to do. Spread out his calculus homework at the counter because he wasn't gonna do it on the pool table. 

“Surprised I haven't seen you around here more often,” he hears, and looks up. The guy who gave him the jacket back when they knocked on the door the night before Fred got shot sits next to him, a different colored bandana around his head. 

“I, uh, haven't had the time,” he lies. 

“Bars ain't for everyone,” the guy says, seeing right through him, “I only come for the pool.” 

Jughead smiles vaguely. “I’ve never played.” 

“I’m sure you’d be better than your dad,” he says, tipping his shot back, “FP was always shit at pool.” 

He was shit at a lot of things, he could say, but doesn’t, because he knows he’s just in a shit mood right now and wouldn’t actually mean it. Archie’s accusation has been in the back of his head all week. 

“What're you doing there?” the guy asks.

“Calculus,” Jughead answers, scowling down at his homework. 

A pause, “You need any help? You look like you’re tryna burn a hole through it.” 

“Um,”

“Give it here,” he says, setting his glass down to gesture at the pencil hanging in Jughead’s hand. Jughead raises an eyebrow in surprise, but passes it over. 

He feels him lean over him, look the problem over.

“You almost got it,” he says, “You just messed up  _ here, _ ” he gestures with the tip of the pencil, pointing out the mistakes and rewriting the proper steps. He then goes on to work him through the next three problems, until Jughead is actually pretty confident he has the concept down. 

“Thanks,” he says, surprised but grateful. 

Bandana guy just pats him on the back and says, “You ever need more help, you know where to find me.” 

Jughead smiles back. Feels guilty.

The thing is that if Archie is right, he could be the person who shot Mr Andrews. 

The thing is that he doesn't think Archie is right. Doesn't want to, maybe. He knows it's possible—of course he knows it's possible, but he can't imagine Ricky or Julian or even Bandana Guy pulling a gun on Pop and shooting the only decent parent in this goddamn town. He doesn't want to. 

God, sitting the in the middle of a gang that had literally been involved in a murder, and he wants to believe they didn’t shoot someone. Six months ago he would’ve laughed at himself. 

“What do you mean?” he had asked, the air in Fred’s truck very still. 

“It was a Serpent,” Archie repeated, “It has to be. They were probably—mad about FP going to jail or something—”

“Why would they shoot your dad?’ he’d cut in, “He didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I don’t know,” Archie said, “They wrecked the drive-in land before.”

“They were hired.”

“By Ronnie’s dad, sure, so who says they weren’t hired for this?”

“By Ronnie’s dad?”

“By—somebody, I don’t know.”

“That’s pretty vague, Arch. And the Serpents aren’t the only people in the world that can be payed to do illegal shit.”

“They’re dangerous,” Archie had said; looked at the jacket again, “They’re the reason your dad is in jail.”

“My dad is in jail because he dumped Jason’s body in the river and then lied about it,” Jughead shot back, defensive. 

“Because he was a gang leader.” 

“Among other things,” Jughead agreed, “What’s your point, Archie?” 

“I just,” a pause, “Are you a Serpent, now? 

“I don’t know,” he’d crossed his arms over his chest, “Maybe.” 

A longer pause; Jughead could feel Archie’s gaze on him, “You gotta be careful, Jug.”

“I am being careful.” 

Archie hadn’t believed him, obviously, but he hadn’t pressed. Jughead hadn’t been convinced, either, but he hadn’t wanted to argue about the general innocence of his dad’s fucking biker gang. Archie was set on it this time, more than he’d been with any of the other suspects, even though he didn’t even have a specific person he was suspicious of. 

That was a dangerous mindset to have. An alienating one. A group of people as a possible enemy, instead of just one. Archie had never had that kind of outlook on the world before, and Jughead didn’t like how much that had changed. How much everything was changing. 

More than anything, he didn’t like how easily he fit into the ambiance of the bar. FP’s kid, of course he’d be doing his homework at the bar counter. 

As he boxes his answer for the last homework problem, he wonders, vaguely, if the paper will smell like alcohol when he turns it in tomorrow. 

 

“Compulsory heterosexuality,” Toni says very simply, sliding into the seat next to him.

“What about it?” Jughead asks, not looking up from the book he's reading, balanced on the edge of the table in front of his lunch tray.  

“It's the reason you kissed that girl from your old school even when you said you didn’t want to.” 

He looks up, then, “You're implying that I'm not heterosexual.” 

“Very much so,” she agrees. 

“Your reasoning?”

“You haven't once looked at my boobs, and I've worn tank tops tight enough to kill someone. Also, you kissed a girl and felt nothing, and you’re a teenage boy.” 

“Maybe I'm just a gentleman,” he counters lightly; he feels strangely calm, despite the vague confrontation, and wonders if calculus second period really just leaves you that apathetic to the world. 

Toni snorts, opening her little milk carton - strawberry, he notes. He didn’t know they were serving strawberry milk today; he’d have to ask Scott to get some of that instead of the chocolate, “Straight boys are never ‘gentlemen’. Besides, who has time to be straight these days?”

“It does seem like a lot of work,” he agrees absently. And then, “If I'm not straight, what am I? I don't exactly give off a flaming homosexual vibe, either.” 

Toni shrugs at that, reaching for one of his fries; he looks at her hand for a long moment, until she rolls her eyes and passes him an onion ring, “There’s more than just ‘straight’ and ‘gay’, y’know.”

“I know,” he says, “I have a friend who's bisexual. Two friends, probably.” 

“Probably?”

“One of ‘em’s still in denial,” he says, thinking about Archie. 

Toni hums in acknowledgment, “What about you?” 

“Am I bisexual?” he asks, and she nods, “I...don't know. I don't know.” 

“Girls don't do it for you, right?” She offers, and he shakes his head grudgingly, “Do boys?” 

He pauses, suddenly feeling out of his depth. This isn't a good idea, he realizes, stomach dropping. He doesn't wanna be here. 

“I don't know,” he says, stabbing aggressively at his pasta, “Why are we even talking about this, anyways?” 

He feels Toni’s eyes on him, but carefully does not look up. “How do you think you did on the math test?” she blessedly changes the subject. Jughead’s holds back a sigh of relief. 

“Not good,” he answers honestly, “I think Miss Rossotto is trying to feed off our young souls.” 

“She’s a demon,” Toni agrees. “But Mr Waters is an alien.”

“Isn’t he, though!”

 

Fred still hasn’t gotten the hang of his crutches. He’s slipped a few times, giving Archie and whoever else was around at the time small heart attacks. Jughead can always tell when he’s around, the awkward clack of the crutches against the hardwood floor. He always wonders why they didn’t just get the poor man a wheelchair, but also knows he needs to start walking again. He goes to physical therapy ten minutes out of town two times a week. He’s getting better. Jughead hopes, at least, because Fred has always been a welcoming person but he was hard to read, sometimes. Smiles the way his mom used to after she would spend hours pouring over taxes at the kitchen counter.

He’s surprised to hear the familiar clacking down at the library, though, legs thrown over the arm of one of the big comfy chairs in the back. He came looking for a source for the history report due next week, but got caught up in something about space. 

His head shoots up at the sound, and he finds Fred Andrews’ eyes from across the room. 

“Hey, Jug,” he says, clacking his way over. He’s only on one crutch, now, and it offsets the way his body curves, but gives him use of his other hand, so that’s good. 

“Hey, Mr. A,” he says, sliding a finger into the book and he shuts it to save his page.

“I haven’t seen you here in awhile,” Fred says, lowering himself slowly into the chair opposite him. Jughead wonders how often he’s been here to have noticed.

He shrugs, “I’ve been busy, y’know, ‘settling in’ and stuff.”

“How’s that been, anyways? I haven’t heard much about it.”

Jughead rubs at his nose, a bad habit, “Not much to hear about, honestly. Same stuff, different part of town.”

Fred hums in acknowledgement, “You made any new friends?” he asks, in that sly way parents do when they think they know the answer already. It almost makes Jughead smile, because it reminds him of all the times Fred would drive he and Archie and sometimes Jellybean to the library and let them wander. 

“I guess so,” he says, because he has an image to uphold. 

Fred smiles, “I’m glad. Switching schools is always rough, especially in the middle of a school year—not that I have any experience there, if I’m being honest,” he adds when Jughead raises an eyebrow at him, “But I’ve watched enough television to know what I’m talking about.”

Jughead huffs a laugh. Looks at the crutch propped up against the chair and asks, “You been okay, Mr. A?” because he wonders if anyone has really asked him that lately.

Fred smiles again, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks old. Older than he should. “I’ve been fine, Jug. Getting better everyday—soon I’ll be doing jumping jacks again.” and then, when his joke falls a bit flat in the hush of the library, “Your dad called me the other day.”

“He did?” Jughead asks, both surprised and not surprised. 

Fred nods, “He asked about you, actually. I think he wants you to visit more.”

He says it with a small, fond smile, so it doesn’t sound accusing. 

“I go every other Sunday. He must just be really bored in there.”

“I don’t know,” Fred says, shrugging, “I think he has a point. You haven’t been over in weeks.” 

Jughead glances away, feeling vaguely guilty; the thing is he hasn’t really been able to look Mr A in the eye lately.

“I’ve just been—busy, with school and stuff, y’know? Lotsa tests.” 

Fred doesn’t look like he buys it for a second, but he doesn’t press. Just gives him his best Fatherly Reassurance Look and says, “Well, when your schedule clears up, feel free to come over anytime. The kitchen doesn’t feel right without you—we have too many leftovers in the fridge ‘cause you were the only one who’d eat them.”

Jughead smiles at that, but still can’t bring himself to look at the man across from him. 

“I’ll take those off your hands. Even though my foster mom is still a better cook than you.”

Fred laughs a little, and Jughead has to bite the inside of his mouth. 

He feels like a fake, is the thing. Like he might be friends with the person who shot Fred Andrews in the stomach, but still isn’t willing to give it up. Lately, he’s been wondering if everyone who ever called him Southside trash was right, because that’s what he’s been feeling like lately. 

 

“Physics is the reason I’m not going to college,” Ricky says, dropping his tray onto the table louder than was really necessary. Someone yells at him from across the cafeteria, and he flips them off.

“Fuck physics,” Scott says at the same time Toni says, “You’re not getting into college ‘cause you’re poor as shit.” Ricky flips her off, too. 

“Mr Waters is a jackass,” he says, flicking a kernel of corn across the table. Jughead flicks it back.

“He’s an alien,” he points out, and Ricky shrugs his agreement.

“Who’s an alien?” Diana asks, sliding into place next to Toni. Her hair is up today, wisps of purple falling loose around her face. 

“Mr Waters.” 

She nods her agreement, “He’s kinda cute, though,” she says. 

“For an alien, maybe,” Ricky says, still bitter. “He doesn’t know how to teach.”

Diana shrugs, “I don’t know, I like his eyes—caught him staring at me a few times,” and then, absently, “He said he’d give me an A for the semester if I sucked him off.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow, Archie and their old music teacher flashing through his mind, “You haven’t, right?”

“Why?” Diana asks, eyes dangerous, “You judging?”

“No, I just—don’t trust adults who’d fuck teenagers. ‘Specially teachers.”

“If it’ll get me an A,” she trails off.

“Nasty,” Toni says, elbowing her lightly, “He’s creepy, Jug’s right. He makes a move, you call the police or something.”

“Like that’d do shit. Most they’d do is arrest him—plus, it’d be his word over mine, and you know how that’d go down.”

Jughead frowns. He thinks about Grundy, how Fred and Alice had forced her out of town but hadn’t gotten her arrested. Fred had radiated guilt for months after that— _ I should’ve gone to the police about it, _ he’d admitted one night, Archie out late at varsity practice,  _ God knows where she is now; I keep thinking about her with someone else’s son.  _

He thinks Fred would love a second chance keeping creeps off the streets and out of schools. Plus, Fred is a Respectable Northside Dad; his word means more than anything Jughead could offer. 

So, “If he ever does do something,” he says, “I know a guy.” 

 

There’s this movie coming out about the clown from that one Stephen King book, the one who lives in the sewers and bites kids’ arms off and shit, and Jughead absolutely does not want to see it. 

The first time he saw the trailer a few months back, he was watching conspiracy videos on Youtube in the early hours of the morning, under the covers of the mattress they’d dragged into Archie’s room, and almost had a goddamn aneurysm. He was not a fan. Archie definitely didn’t wanna see it, so that worked out well for everyone. 

“I thought you loved horror,” Toni says, eyebrows raised over her library book.

“There’s a difference between like, eighties horror and actual goddamn  _ nightmares.” _

“Um, Nightmare On Elm Street?” Ricky points out.

“I’d take Freddy over fucking Pennywise any day,” he says, shaking his head, “I’m not seeing that movie.” 

The the thing is he ends up going and seeing it anyways, even though he knows for a fact he’ll have some kind of nightmare/daydream bullshit about it later that week. Scotty doesn’t come, because even he knows it’d be stupid to see a clown movie high. Personally, Jughead thinks he got high an hour before the movie started just so he wouldn’t have to go. He’s been trying not to do it as much during the school week, because it turns out he can’t actually keep a perfect calc grade only showing up half the time, no matter how ‘good’ at it he is.

They’re the only ones at The Bijou this late on a Thursday night, save a few other people here and there, so their yells and subsequent laughter are especially loud in the near-empty theater, echoing off the walls as the kids scream up on screen. It’s actually a quality movie, all things considered. He doesn’t think he’s been this affected by a horror movie since the first time he saw The Sixth Sense back when he was like eight and the plot twist at the end fucked his impressionable self up for weeks. 

Also, Toni buys him a milkshake at Pop’s afterward because this was all her horrible idea in the first place and she’s the one who pressured him into it. 

“Be honest,” she says once he’s halfway through his strawberry shake and had some time to consider the whole thing, “Did you cry?” 

“Fuck you,” he says, “Maybe. It was so  _ loud,” _ he defends when she laughs a little, “Loud sounds mess with my hearing aid.” 

It slips out before he can stop it, but if she’s put off at all, she doesn’t show it, “But it was good though, wasn’t it?” 

“Oh, for sure,” he agrees, “That was a  _ good _ movie.” 

She smiles, looking proud of herself, so he flicks a fry at her, and then says, “I heard the directors tried their best to like, actually  _ scare _ the kids on set with the clown and stuff, so they could get that raw fear on tape.”

“They did their job well, then,” Toni says, “Scared the hell out of me.” 

“I know, you got your popcorn everywhere like ten minutes into the movie ‘cause you jumped too hard.” 

“Shut up,” she says, but she’s still smiling.

The thing is he got the absolute shit scared out of him but he still had fun, which. Hasn’t happened in a while. He’s been scared plenty, in the last year, but he hasn’t had fun with it in a long long time. It feels like something heavy has been lifted off his chest, even though tomorrow morning everything will be exactly the same.

Later that night, he opens that new doc, still untitled, and writes:  _ I want you to meet all of them, even though one of them dresses like he thinks he’s Danny fucking Zuko. I want to go to the movies like we used to, even though the drive-in is dead now so it won’t really be the same. You hate horror so we can see some dumb romantic comedy, and you’ll laugh at all the jokes even though they’re shitty.  _

A pause, a breath, and:  _ Sometimes I want to hold your hand, but sometimes I don’t. I want to look at you always, longer than I’m supposed to. More than I’m supposed to want.  _

_ Sometimes I think I’m still supposed to want more than I do, even though I don’t. But I think I’d be okay with holding your hand.  _

 

You can only stay on top of the world for so long, though, literally and figuratively. Archie isn’t waiting at the school gates this time; Jughead hears the familiar sound of Fred’s truck pulling up in front of his foster parent’s house. For a moment, he thinks he dreamed it up, but then there’s a knock on the front door. Hot Dog is spending the week at Ricky’s dad’s place—they’d worked out a joint-custody kind of deal because his foster parents were fond of the little guy but were only willing to put up with him so much, and Ricky didn’t wanna give him all the way up just yet—so there’s no frantic barking at the sound. 

Jughead rubs at his eyes, and takes his time walking down the stairs; his foster parents are out for the night, Jughead still feeling like a stranger intruding in their home, so Archie can knock as many times as he wants but it’s not gonna make him walk any faster. 

He still has his arm up when the door swings open. 

“Archie,” he says, not bothering to try to sound surprised.

“Hey,” he says, and stops. Takes a moment to look around without stepping inside. 

Jughead is suddenly self-conscious, even though he shouldn’t be. His new house is a step up from the trailer, sure, but it’s still a Southside house. A step or two down from the bright American Dream. He knows—hopes he knows—that Archie isn’t judging him, always used to make sure Jughead knew he never agreed with the shit people would say, but they’re older now, and these things matter. Archie stopped inviting him to parties for a reason. He looks out of place here, bright and shiny, stands like he doesn’t know how to stand. 

“So,” he says, because he knows Archie is waiting for him to say something, “do you wanna come inside, or…?” 

“No,” Archie says, “not—not right now. I was actually wondering if you wanted to go to Pop’s.” 

Jughead raises an eyebrow, surprised. Archie’s been avoiding Pop’s like a superstitious kid after everything that happened. A lot of people have.

“At…” he pulls out his phone to glance at the time, “like ten pm?” 

Archie shrugs, “We’ve been out later.” 

Jughead hums in vague agreement, “Is this about the whole shooter thing?”

Archie glances away guiltily, “Look, I know how it sounds. And I know you’re…a Serpent now, but. We need your help with this, Jug—I need your help. We can’t do this without you.”

Jughead pulls his beanie down to cover the tips of his ears more thoroughly, Archie’s gaze making his ears burn, tilts his head in thought, “Okay, fine. I’ll go. As long as you’re paying.”

Archie smiles, then, a little sliver of a thing, and it makes Jughead almost smile, too. It drops when Jughead reaches automatically for his Serpents’ jacket, hanging loosely on the banister. 

“I can…not wear it,” Jughead offers. 

Archie shakes his head, as if Jughead can’t tell when he’s uncomfortable, “No, it’s fine, it’s just—well, Ronnie and Betty and them were gonna come, too.”

“Thought Betty already knew,” Jughead says, an accidental run-in at the grocery store, awkward enough on its own that the jacket thing was kind of a secondary concern. Their ‘break-up’, if that’s what you really wanted to call it, hadn’t been all that dramatic, but it had left them both a little unsure. A little off. 

Jughead had wondered if Betty had actually liked him, or if she had wanted a distraction or some kind of project. He’d wondered if he actually liked her, or if he’d just been desperate to make something like that work. He thinks he knows it was the latter, now, but he still feels bad. Feels wrong, to think that way. Wrong to feel that way. Wrong to be that way.

“She does,” Archie confirms.

“Than I assume Ronnie and Kevin know by now.”

“Not really,” Archie says too quickly, “Okay, so maybe a little.” 

“A little?”

“A lot. But they’re the only ones.” 

He looks a little guilty, so Jughead just rolls his eyes, “I’m not mad, Arch. It’s not like I was really keeping it a secret.” 

“I know,” Archie says, “But I just—I don’t want anyone to like, think of you different.”

_ Think of you badly, _ he hears. 

Jughead is silent for a moment. In the doc, a few nights ago, he had written:  _ sometimes I think you’re too good for someone like me to touch, and you’re the only one who doesn’t see that. Someday you’re gonna get hurt because of it.  _

Now, he just says, “Thanks, Arch, but it’s not like most people thought particularly well of me in the first place.” 

“Still,” Archie looks like he wants to disagree, but also doesn’t have any ground to back himself up. 

Biting his lip, Jughead decides to shrug the jacket on, but also grabs the blue one hanging by the door just in case. It’s a chilly night, anyways. He can feel Archie’s eyes linger on the snake when he locks the door behind them, but he doesn’t say anything else about it. 

“How’ve you been, knock-off John Bender?” Veronica asks over her milkshake, taking in his appearance in stride and moving along quick as anything. 

They’ve never been particularly close, the two of them. He likes her fine, appreciate her obscure pop-culture references, but she’s always existed on a different wavelength than, in the smallest ways.

“Fantastic, Claire, how about you?” he shoots back. 

“I’ve been alright,” a more honest answer than he was expecting, “My dad’s back in town.”

Jughead nods, “My dad just left,” he says, and she rolls her eyes, but smiles a bit.

They spend some time catching up, a bit stilted, the way people fall back together after a long absence and realize everyone is just a little bit different now. There’s not much to say, because everyone wants to avoid touchy subjects and old aches.

“So about the shooter,” he says eventually, getting to the point, “You think it was a Serpent?”

“Yeah,” Archie says, both of them ignoring the way the other three tense just a little. Kevin glances around like he’s afraid his dad might somehow overhear.

“Why?” he asks, a bit sharper than he meant to.

“They’ve been hired to do other stuff before,” Veronica answers.

“By your dad.”

“By my dad,” she agrees, “And Cheryl’s dad, with the whole…Jason thing.”

“So you think they were hired?”

Archie licks his lips, leans forwards a bit, “At first I was sure that someone must’ve been mad about FP going to jail or something,” 

Jughead feels a hot rush of anger, because he thought they’d already been through this, “Hey—”

“But I don’t think that’s what it was,” Archie says quickly, “It wouldn’t make sense—my dad had nothing to do with that. And…your dad wouldn’t do something like that.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Jughead agrees, vaguely defensive. “So if you think they were hired, it’s not really a matter of who did the shooting, but who payed the shooter.”

“Yeah,” Archie nods. 

“So who do you think?”

“Well, we…don’t really know,” Betty offers, smile apologetic, “That’s why we need your help.”

“What do you mean?” he asks slowly, even though he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Archie starts, “But you’re a Serpent, now, right? You have access to things that we don’t.”

“I think ‘access’ is a little too big of a word; this isn’t a white collar crime syndicate.”

“But you can do thing we can’t, talk to people without it being suspicious.”

Jughead feels something uncomfortable in his chest, “You want me to, what,  _ spy _ on them?” 

“If that's what you wanna call it, I guess.”

“Literally what else would I call it?”

“Collecting information?” Veronica offers.

“Recon mission,” Archie says. 

“Solving a mystery,” Betty adds.

“Double agent-ing,” Kevin chips in. 

“Double agents are literally spies, just twice as fake.” Veronica points out.

“Okay, true,”

“This isn't James Bond, I'm not gonna  _ spy _ on my—” Jughead cuts himself off before he says something stupid and half-baked like  _ family _ , “on the Serpents. It's a stupid idea, first of all. Second of all, I don't wanna know about drug shit.” 

“So you admit they're dealing drugs.” 

“I admit they're selling weed, everyone knows that. I don't know about anything else. It wouldn't make sense to start up a drug trade when Cliff Blossoms just got exposed. They're not stupid.” 

“So, you won’t?” Archie asks, sounding unfairly disappointed, like he didn’t just ask him to spy on literal gang members when a few weeks ago he was telling him to be careful about it. 

“I'll ask around about it, see what Ricky and them know, but I'm not gonna like, sneak into back rooms and shit. You're the one who said the Serpents were dangerous. I don't exactly wanna be on their bad side.” 

“That's fair,” Veronica says. 

“Thank you.” 

Archie opens his mouth to say something else stupid yet somehow endearing, but he’s interrupted by a sudden, “Yo, Jug!” 

All five of them look up to see Ricky at the checkout counter, a large chocolate shake in one hand.

“Hey,” Jughead says, surprised, not sure whether or not he’s disappointed when he saunters his way over, hyper-aware of the way his friends’ eyes follow the movement, the way Ricky is aware of being watched.

“Guys,” Jughead says, just to redirect some of the attention, “This uh, this is Ricky.”

“Hi, Ricky,” Betty says after a moment, because Betty is actually a civilized human person. Veronica won't stop looking at his hair. 

“Hey,” Ricky says.

“So, what's up?” Jughead asks.

“Nothin, I'm just picking up a milkshake for Julian.”

“What, he can’t come get it himself?”

“The man’s in college, he's busy with papers and shit.” 

“He’s paying you, isn't he.” 

“Yeah,” Ricky laughs. 

“Don't you have work in like,” he glances at the clock on the far wall, “now?” 

“Yeah but it's cool,” Ricky shrugs, “I'm a fast runner.”

“You're a shit runner, I’ve seen you in P.E.” and then, because the atmosphere is getting to be a little bit much, “I can take it to him if you want.”

“For real?” 

“Yeah, for real?” Kevin asks. 

“For real,” Jughead agrees, standing up, pushing his half-eaten shake away, “I'll see you guys later, okay? Later,” he repeats when Archie makes a move to stand up, too. 

He watches Archie’s gaze dart from him to Ricky and then back again, like a laser, before he nods, “I’ll text you,” he says. 

“Yeah, okay,” Jughead agrees, “Nice to see you again,” he says to the others. 

“You too,” Betty says. Kevin tilts his head at Ricky’s hair and mouths a very obvious  _ why? _ which Jughead ignores, because honestly, let the guy live. 

“Good luck,” Veronica says with a little tilt of her perfectly-trimmed New York eyebrows; he’s not sure what exactly she’s referring to, but he appreciates it all the same.

“Those’re the Northside kids who found you at lunch that one time, right?” Ricky asks once they’re outside.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, sighing long and deep, vaguely anxious. 

“They seem…nice,” Ricky offers, and Jughead huffs a laugh. 

“They’re not usually like that,” he says, “They just…”

“It’s cool, I get it; the jacket ain’t exactly welcoming.” 

Jughead bites his lip against the tone of his voice, “Why d’you wear it the time, then?” 

He watches Ricky shrug from the corner of his eye, “I dunno. Why d’you wear that crown all the time?”

Jughead smiles vaguely, because he knew he would say that. It’s what he would say. “I dunno.” 

Ricky smiles, loose and greasy, “Then there you have it,” a pause, “It suits you, by the way.”

“The hat?”

“The jacket.” 

He looks over at him, then, but Ricky doesn’t elaborate, just hands him the milkshake and says, “Shit, I’m gonna be late. Tell Julian he still has to pay you.”

Jughead watches him jog back the way they came, the snake on his back getting smaller and smaller. He stands there for a long moment, the milkshake melting in his hand, before he turns and starts his walk to Sunnyside. 

 

He raps on the little trailer door three time, the way he used to when he was younger and wanted some of that Tamarindo candy stuff Julian always had. 

“Hey Julian, I got that shake you wanted.” Silence. “Julian?” he calls, knocking again, a bit more forceful. This time, it creaks open under his fingers. It’s quiet inside, and dark. Jughead steps carefully up the steps. 

He finds Julian on the couch. Thinks he’s asleep until he steps closer, catches the sour scent of alcohol in the air, sees the empty bottles on the floor. He feels the air sweep out of his lungs.

“Julian?” he asks again, watching as Julian’s head jerks up. He manages to squint over at him, moving to sit up, before he falls sideways and off of the couch. He lands hard on the trailer floor, making Jughead wince as he rushes over, leaving the milkshake on the counter. 

“Fuck,” he says, rubbing at his head, “I’m gonna throw up.” 

“Not on your fucking couch,” Jughead says, thinking about how hard it is to get the damn smell out with the way it lingers, “Come on.” 

He gets his feet under him and does his best to pull Julian up, too. Half-drags him to the bathroom, holding steady while Julian sways. He’s younger and lighter than his dad ever was, so it’s easier than he’s used to. Not by much, but it’s easier. 

They’re two steps into the tiny bathroom before Julian is jerking out of his arms to grab at the toilet. Jughead looks away. The sounds are always the worst, but he hates the sight more. 

He leans, propped in the doorway for a solid five minutes, doing his best not to listen. 

“You need some water?” he asks, after Julian is just panting into the toilet. 

He nods wordlessly, and Jughead hurries to the kitchen. Most of the cups are dirty, but he manages to find an old plastic one in the back of a cabinet. When he gets back into the kitchen, Julian is trying to crawl into the quickly filling bathtub. 

“Jesus fuck,” Jughead says, because the asshole is splashing water everywhere, and he’s not one hundred percent sure what the fuck he’s trying to do. 

“Feel nasty,” Julian says, finally sinking into the water, “Wanna clean up.”

“Do it later,” he says, turning the faucet off. Julian doesn’t make a move to get out, though, so Jughead just sits down next to the tub and hands him the cup, water splashing onto his sleeves when Julian reaches to take it. 

“What the fuck, Julian,” he says after a long moment of watching him drink the whole thing.

“This essay I’m writing. Really taking it’s toll.”

Jughead rubs at his eyes against the joke; his dad used to try and make him laugh when Jughead would untie his boot laces because his hands would shake too much to do it himself, smile drunk and desperate. 

“There were like eight bottles on the floor. You never do this.”

Julian shifts in the water, propping his chin up on the edge of the tub, and sighs. Jughead waits.

“My mama,” he slurs after a moment, “She’s sick. Real sick. Found out the other day.”

“Shit, Julian,” he breathes. 

“Doctors said they could fix her up. But hospital bills, they’re—they’re real expensive, y’know? Real fuckin’ expensive. And I won’t—I can’t go to college  _ and _ pay ‘em off, it won’t work.” he swallows, loud in the silence, “I just—I worked so hard getting in, y’know? You saw me, I studied, I, I took all the tests, I worked hard, you remember?”

“Yeah,” he says, steadying, “Yeah, I remember. You aced the SATs.”

“I know, I really did,” Julian says, nodding, smiling, not smiling, “But we got shit insurance. Got shit everything. Can’t let my mama die. She’s all I got left.” 

He sniffs, rubs at his eyes and tilts his head up like he’s kneeling at the altar; the light pouring through the dirty window casts shadows over his face.

“Don’t know what I was thinking, anyways, thinking I could get outta here, take my mama and go somewhere better, make—fuckin  _ movies, _ can you believe that?” he laughs, bitter; leaves a bitter taste in Jughead’s mouth, “Thought I could make movies, like some rich famous fuck. Fuckin’ stupid. I ain’t ever gonna be shit.”

“That’s not true,” Jughead defends, voice feeble and startlingly shaky.

“Yeah it is,” he says, “yeah it is,” and then he’s gone, leaning forwards and clutching at Jughead’s shoulders. His dignity is all over the floor, spilled over out of the tub. His sobs are so loud in the dirty little bathroom. 

Jughead tries his best to calm him down, rubs circles into his back the way his dad used to whenever he had nightmares, came home from school with a bloody nose and a note from the nurse. Julian is so goddamn drunk it probably doesn’t matter how shit he is at it. 

Everyone always says write what you know, write what you know. People want to read about murders and mysteries, they’ve been doing it for years, but he doubts anyone would want to read about this. A father killing his son, maybe—morbid fascination. Holding a man four years older than you as he sobs into your shoulder, drunk out of his mind because the world has fucked him over since the beginning, not so much. That kind of thing makes people hyper-aware of the society they live in, their place in it. People would rather be horrified with a rich family tearing itself apart than face the more mundane, realistic aspects of the world. 

He wants to write about the way Julian’s hands shake as they dig into his shoulder, the way he chokes on his tears. His clothes are wet; the front of Jughead’s shirt is damp, and one sleeve has unrolled, pressed against Julian’s heaving back. He wants to write about the way his eyes burn. How cold it is, now that the adrenaline and panic has worn off. He feels old. Julian seems so young. He  _ is _ so young. 

He wants to force it upon the world, make it see what it’s done. Make it face the music, take responsibility—he doesn’t who’s responsible. Maybe it’s everyone. Northside. South. Maybe it’s Julian’s own damn fault for wanting to be something more than this town. Maybe it’s the town’s fault for making him want to be. He wants the world to be fair, but it’s never been fair. It never will be. Not to people like them. Not to people like him. 

Jughead wants to make noise, wants to be loud enough that the world can’t ignore him, but he knows people would just plug their ears. 

 

He checks his phone later, once Julian is asleep in his bed and Jughead’s cleaned up the bathroom as best he could, threw the empty bottles away and took the trash out to the dumpster at the back of the trailer park. It lights up the dark living room, casting shadows over the furniture. 

Hey, he reads, squinting through the fatigue in his eyes. Received two hours ago.

Sorry about earlier, comes next. 

10:45 pm:  _ Ik I shouldn’t have asked u to do that _

10:56 pm: _ I’m just afraid i’ll never know who did it, and i’ve always been shit at puzzles _

10: 59:  _ idk how to do this without ur help _

11:33 pm: _ jug? _

11: 47:  _ are u okay??  _

He puts his passcode in, ready to offer some excuse about falling asleep, when his phone lights up, buzzing with a phone call. Archie face fills the screen.

Jughead closes his eyes, breathes deep, and accepts the call.

“Hello?” he says, surprised at how tired he sounds. 

“Jug?” Archie says, voice distorted through the phone.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound okay.” and then, when Jughead doesn’t say anything, “Did something happen?”

“No,” he says, “Yes.”

“Shit, are you hurt or anything?”

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m okay.”

“You don’t sound okay.”

“You already said that.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I,” he lies. 

Archie must see right through him—hear right through him, he thinks, and would laugh if he wasn’t so damn exhausted—because he says, “Where are you?”

“Arch, it’s like midnight.”

“Yeah, and?”

“You have school tomorrow.”

“So do you. Where are you?” 

Jughead sighs, closing his eyes and sinking into the couch, “I’m at Sunnyside.”

“Your dad’s?”

He shakes his head, even though he knows Archie can’t see him, “No. My friend Julian’s. The one I was bringing the milkshake to. He was drunk off his ass, almost slipped and died and then tried to drown in the bathtub.”

“Shit, dude,” Archie says, and Jughead huffs a laugh. 

“His mom is sick. He take classes at the community college but he can’t anymore. Hospital bills.”

He hears Archie breathe, and knows he knows all about hospital bills, Fred old and thin against the stark white sheets. “Is he okay?” he asks, because he’s always been good like that.

“I don’t think so.” he says. 

“I’m coming over,” Archie says. Jughead hears the sound of his bed creaking, his sheets rustling. 

“Archie, don’t,”

“Jug,”

“Go to bed, Arch, you have practice tomorrow. I’ll be fine.” 

“Jug,” he says again, voice low with concern. It makes something inside him ache. 

“I’ll be fine,” he repeats, “I’ll call his—” he stops himself before he can says mom, because his mom is in the hospital and probably can’t come scold her son for being stupid this time, “I’ll call Toni or something. It’ll be fine.”

Archie is quiet for a long moment, like he’s weighing the truth of Jughead’s words, before he says a quiet, “Okay. Okay, but you have to go to bed, too. You sound exhausted.”

“I know,” he says, “I will.” 

“You sure? I can seriously drive over if you want.”

“It’s fine, Arch, for real. I’ll text you in the morning or something, okay?”

“Okay,” a long, heavy pause, “I hope your friend is okay. Be safe, Jug.”

“You too,” he says, because everything’s been all out of whack lately, and all parts of town have been dangerous.

He can hear the smiles in Archie’s voice when he says, “Night, Jug.”

“Night.” 

There’s a pause, a few moments where they’re just listening to each other breathe. It’s too intimate, too nostalgic, too something, so Jughead hangs up first. Sets his phone down next to him, tilts his head back and breathes so deep his ribs hurt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, abt the serpent who stole jug’s fries at lunch and laughed at his joke and then brought him a dog as a peace offering and called him family, even tho he’s only spoken once and doesn’t have a name other than the one we’ve inexplicably decided on: yea he prob gets attached to ppl too quickly but would die for them, is also afraid to let ppl in, looks intimidating but has a good heart, 
> 
> also y'all i saw 'It' this weekend and it was so,,,,,,,,good
> 
> anyways!! comment to help my pass this physics test tomorrow and thanks for your support!
> 
> (come hmu on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) to talk abt this trash show anytime too)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the new doc, untitled, the one that will not be a story: _no one ever leaves this place. Ronnie’s parents left but now they're back. Mom and Jellybean left but their ghosts are still here. Julian wanted to leave but he never had a chance. I'm going to be stuck here forever, but you won't be, and that's okay. It's how it should be. You'll be incredible._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes i think about how [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Ffce1ocio/) is playing in the background of jug and archie's iconic ep1 Diner Scene™ like??? 'tell the story how you want to, make up all the details' ?? 'could i be someone you can trust' ?? you can't make this shit up fellas
> 
> anyways here i am 30 years later w chapter 3 bc im horrible at planning things out and i really thought i could finish this before the s2 premiere,,,,,,,,,all this time i was booboo the fool. be ready for pretentious james dean movie references and over-emotional teens arguing bc they don't know how to process their feelings bc they're like 16

 

**iii. climax**

 

Jughead thinks that maybe he can't finish The Story is because there's a second climax too soon after the first—the Big Killer Reveal, the Shocking Twist—with hardly any time to process before he's being handed a cliche biker jacket and Mr A is getting shot. And he doesn't wanna write about that, and then he's off to a different part of town so he can't really witness the fallout at school. There's nothing more to write about. Nothing he can write about without leading into a new story altogether.

He tries. Stares at the screen so long he might've damaged his eyes a little. Written and deleted and rewritten and deleted and not attempted again because there's--nothing. There's nothing.

In the new doc, untitled, the one that will not be a story: _no one ever leaves this place. Ronnie’s parents left but now they're back. Mom and Jellybean left but their ghosts are still here. Julian wanted to leave but he never had a chance. I'm going to be stuck here forever, but you won't be, and that's okay. It's how it should be. You'll be incredible._

The thing is Archie is like, James fucking Dean and Jughead is Plato. Sometimes, he thinks about what could’ve happened if he was there in Pop’s the day Fred got shot. Maybe he runs into them that morning and they invite him to eat with them and he’s wearing Archie’s godawful varsity jacket because it’s cold and he somehow forgot his own at home.

And maybe the shooter comes in and maybe Jughead’s the one to try and play hero just to spite Archie and that damn complex of his--and Fred is terrified for a split second because right, he’s wearing Archie’s jacket, and so maybe for a second he thinks, he thinks--but then Archie is just the one trying to stop the bleeding and thank god, and that’s okay, it’s just Jughead. Maybe his story could’ve ended there instead of going on to become something no one wants to read.

Then, after he’s gone through it once or twice in his head, he thinks he’s stupid. And he doesn’t really mean it, anyways. He doesn’t want to die, and he definitely doesn't wanna get shot. The thing is just that he deserves to be the one spending months in the hospital racking up bills he can’t pay more than Fred Andrews did. Lord knows he doesn’t have anything else to offer the world.

It’s a very dull kind of realization, something he knows more than discovers. That’s just the way it is. He’s just being melodramatic, anyways, like he always is. Life isn’t a fucking James Dean movie.

Sometimes he thinks Archie hates himself for not being the one to get shot, and he thinks someone ought to tell him he shouldn’t, because parents are the ones who’re supposed to protect their kids, not the other way around. Jughead doesn’t think he should be the one to tell him, because he’s never really followed his own advice.

He thinks all kinds of things, but thinking never does anything, and neither does he.

He doesn’t text Archie the next morning because he’s busy trying to get Julian’s coffeemaker to work while he and Toni talk in hushed tones in the living room, and then showing up to school three periods in because they have a quiz he doesn’t wanna miss. In the end, he doesn’t get the coffeemaker to work, and he doesn’t have a late pass, but the teacher doesn’t care that much, because Jughead always does good on the quizzes anyways.

He remembers just as the school day is winding to a close, backpack thrown over one shoulder. He digs his phone out of his pocket and shoots a quick **_hey_ ** , starting his short walk to the trailer park. They’re not planning on leaving Julian alone for a day or two.

 _Hey,_ comes the reply moments later, and then: _are you ok?_

 **_yeah_ ** , he lies.

_how’s your friend?_

**_idk. I think he’s doing better, considering he tried to drown himself w alcohol last night_ **

_that’s good_

_not the alcohol part, the doing better part_

Jughead smiles, if faint.

 _yeah,_ he types out, and then pockets his phone, because he doesn’t have anything else to say, and he doesn’t wanna expose Archie to this shit anymore than he has to. It’s a recurring theme, lately. He rubs his eyes against the cool, humid air, and wonders if it’s going to rain.

 

“Hospital bills are expensive as _shit,”_ Scotty says, like this is somehow news.

“No shit,” Diana shoots back. Snappier than usual. Stressed.

They’re all bent over the lunch table, trays pushed to the side and forgotten, huddled around the paper Toni brought to school. A calculation of the bare minimum she spent forty-five minutes coaxing out of Julian this morning while Jughead cooked eggs and listened.

His mom is really sick. It’s a lot of money.

“Their insurance will cover part of it,” Toni says, ignoring them both, “But not all of it. Julian’s trying to get ahold of his dad, but he hasn’t been able to reach him yet, and his little brother got a job outside of town.”

“The place I’m working at is hiring soon,” Ricky says, “One of the guys is—moving,” he says, instead of _going to college_ like he’d told Jughead earlier.

“I’m applying there after school,” Jughead says, “I think the Mayor’s office has an accountant position open, but I don’t really think they’d wanna hire me—they just barely got rid of me.”

“I can try that one,” Diana says, tucking her hair behind her left ear, “I have this fancy-ass business lady skirt, makes me look classy as hell. I can answer phone-calls and shit.”

The thing is they’re all trying to raise money to help Julian pay. The Serpents--all of them are pitching in, if they can. Jughead doesn’t have much to offer himself, but he owes Julian and his mom a lot, and fuck if he’s not at least gonna try.

He thinks that when they say they’re family, they fucking mean it. He wonders if that’s where FP got part of the money to pay for Jughead’s hearing aids and the bills that came with them.

He thinks about asking about it a few days later, his dad sitting across from him in the same chair he sits in every time, like he's claimed it as his own, a well-worn spot on the couch that would get Jughead a light swat to the back of his head whenever he tried to take it for his own. His dad is drumming his fingers on the tabletop the way he does when he's anxious or stalling or sober or bored. Jughead never knows which one it is.

“Shit,” he breathes after Jughead’s gotten the gist of it out, “Feels like we're drowning in hospital bills lately. Is Julian doin’ alright?”

“Not really,” Jughead answers, because they're nothing if not honest with each other lately, “But we're helping him pay.”

His dad just nods absently, like he'd expected nothing less. He leans forwards, stops his to put his weight on his elbows. Pauses, glances around the way he does when he’s telling a secret. _I’ve got a plan, a game plan, to get back on my feet_ , or _don’t tell your mom, but do you have like, five bucks at the least?—I’ll pay you back, kid, I promise._

“I've got—money, a separate account,” he says, voice low, “Just one, outside the country, you know? Backup,” and Jughead is more surprised about how not surprised he is; doesn't ask where the money came from because he doesn't wanna know, “I've—well, I've used a lot of it, recently, but—”

“That was you?” Jughead interrupts, remembers Archie talking low and hushed in the waiting room—large part of the bills were paid, just like that, nothing they asked for but still received, “We thought it was like, Ronnie's mom or something.”

His dad smiles this vaguely bitter smile, bittersweet but nostalgic, too, “Nah,” he says, “Couldn't let the company fall through, not after all the work Fred’s put into it. Doesn't deserve that shit.”

Jughead looks at his dad for a long moment.

“Archie thinks it was a Serpent who shot Fred,” he says, because he needs to tell someone or he thinks it might burn him up.

FP goes very still. Shakes his head. “No,” he says, “They know how much—they know not to fuck with my family; they'd never do somethin’ like that.”

“They took a job from Jason's dad without you knowing,” he points out carefully.

“Mustang took that job,” he says, voice hard, bringing a fist down hard against the table, “And now he's dead. They're good people—he was the exception, not the rule.” And then, when Jughead says nothing, he runs a hand through his hair and says, “Archie must not like me very much. Always accusing me of sabotaging his dad.”

“That's not true,” Jughead says feebly, “He's just been stressed lately; his dad got shot.”

“Yeah, he did, didn't he,” FP sounds old. He looks old. He and Fred have been a matching set lately, Jughead thinks absently. Old and young all at once. All broken up.

“Fred said you want me to visit more,” he says to break the tension that’s always in the air somehow.

“What, a guy can't ask after his kid without it being the news of the week?” he asks; he's trying to sound annoyed, but he mostly sounds embarrassed.

He almost says it's news because it happens so rarely, but he doesn't, because just because things have been going to shit lately doesn't mean he has to be an asshole about shit they can't fix anymore. At least he's trying, now. That's more than he can say for most people.

 

He doesn’t see Archie much for the next little while. Working at a grocery store requires more attention and actual hours put in than running old movies at the drive-in every few nights and watching from the best seat in the house. Mike’s is the Less Fancy grocery store in town, but it gets a lot of customers. The manager used to let Jughead buy the booze his dad sent him to buy with an extra ten slid across the counter, so he knows the place pretty well.

And he still has school, of course, tests and essays the teachers half-read but still grade harshly. He sends the google docs link to Betty one night, some half-assed lit paper, and asks if she has the time to read it over. She does, with less criticism than she used to give his Blue & Gold articles and more smiley emojis. He wonders if his exhaustion can be sensed that easily over text message. If it bleeds through his fingers and into the words he types, catches like a seasonal flu. He needs to step up his game.

He gets shit pay but he keeps his grades up. Doesn’t go to Pop’s as much but his foster mom still cooks really well, asks about his day over the kitchen counter when her husband stays late at whatever job he works. _You’re such an independent boy,_ she says one night, chopping an onion with steady hands, _I hardly know what you’re up to these days._

He fidgets with the hem of his sleeves and gives an embarrassed _I’m sorry, I’ve just been busy lately._

He says the same thing to Archie later that night, types out an apology like he did a few nights before. Visits Julian’s mom in the hospital a few times. She seems happy to see him, pats the back of his head like she used to but doesn’t talk as much. Tubes in her nose and exhaustion heavy in her eyes, stress heavy in her smile. She reminds him of Fred, the way they spend her birthday in the little hospital room like they all spent Christmas in Fred’s.

Fred got better. He’s walking again, Jughead’s heard recently, almost completely without a crutch. Jughead doesn’t know if Julian’s mom will ever get to that place again. He never can stay very long. A hospital room isn’t all that different from a prison cell, after all; he visits his dad often enough to know that much.

He wonders, vaguely, if he should’ve said yes to all the rich kids at Riverdale High who used to ask if he had a drug hook-up. Ricky and Scotty slipping weed to a bunch of poor ass teens in-between classes doesn’t rack up nearly as much as he could’ve. Wasted opportunities.

He keeps thinking, late at night when Toni texts him, anxious and afraid it’ll never be enough, about maybe possibly talking about it with Veronica. His answer is always no, right after. He has no right to ask that of her, Breakfast Club nicknames aside. He doesn’t know if Julian would even take the money, if he knew where it came from. Nobody likes to be a charity case; looked down on, the slums of society that can’t survive on their own.

His mom always used to say pride would get FP killed someday, used to whisper it to him, harsh but hushed in the kitchen. Run her hands through Jughead’s hair when she was feeling affectionate, try to give him her soft-spoken advice. Murmur small things to herself that Jughead never knew if he was supposed to hear.

The thing is that pride is all some of them have, at the end of the day. It’s what used to have Jughead biting out smart-ass insults that would get him shoved against lockers and sent home with black eyes and notes from the principle. What kept him from answering leers he would get from back alleys when he was living in the drive-in.

Besides, he thinks, he doesn’t know if Veronica would even be able to say yes. Her dad is back in town. He’s never met the guy, but he’s heard things from Archie. Fred gets this look on his face whenever he’s brought up. If Fred doesn’t like him, Jughead doesn’t think he wants to meet him at all.

So maybe the shooter thing is pushed to the back of his mind because he has other things to worry about, other priorities. Maybe he lets himself forget, a little bit. It's not that he doesn't want to know who shot Mr A—of course he wants to find out, it's a mystery with his name written all over it in bright red sharpie. He's just. Afraid, maybe, of the shooter turning out to be someone he knows.

Either way, Archie doesn't press about it. Knows enough about hospital bills to understand why he can't come over as often, why he can't follow through on their little aborted investigation. He's good that way.

 

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” he says into the quiet of the empty gym.

“Other than the fact that you drink milk straight out of the carton?” Toni asks, not glancing up from her phone.

“Yeah,” he says. Their legs hang loosely over the edge of the platform the drama club will use as a stage in two hours.

She looks up, this time. Clicks her phone off and sets it off to the side. “What kinda wrong?” she asks, leaning back on her hands.

“I don’t know,” Jughead shrugs, “It’s like—everyone is in on some secret that I don’t know about, or, there’s something I’m supposed to feel, but don’t.”

“Lotsa people are missing lots of things,” she says slowly, like she’s considering each word; he appreciates that about her, the way she thinks things through when she means them, “Sometimes things are taken from them.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t think I ever had it in the first place. Everyone always talks about explosions and butterflies and shit—do you know how many times I’ve read about how the world stops when you kiss your ‘one true love’ for the first time? Or how sex is all about fire and passion and spice?”

Toni laughs softly; anything more than that would disturb the hush that’s settled over the place since third period started. They both skipped, because Jughead has an essay to finish and Toni didn’t wanna be there.

“The world’s never stopped for me,” she says, “But when I kissed my ex for the first time, she stuck her tongue so far down my throat I couldn’t breathe, so that’s something.”

Jughead blinks a few times to get the image out of his head, “See, I feel like I’m missing out on shit, but also, like, why would I wanna do that, y’know? It doesn’t sound fun to me.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you for not wanting to have someone else’s tongue down your throat,” Toni says, “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not wanting other shit, either. Live your best life, y’know?”

“Yeah,” he says absently, “I guess so.”

He opens his mouth to says something else, maybe about how he wants to want to do those things, to feel those things, but the bell rings, sounds loudly through the empty gym.

(Later that night, ten pages into the lit homework, Toni sends him a bunch of links and a s _ee, there’s nothing wrong with you._

It takes him a solid five minutes to bring himself to click on the first one, even longer to read, and then reread. There are some words he’s heard before, some he hasn’t. He thinks his hands might be shaking a little, and maybe that’s why it’s getting harder and harder to read the lines on the screen, but that doesn’t matter.

He can only manage to read through one before he has to shove his phone under his pillow and get the rest of his reading done, but he feels. Relieved, maybe. Something that isn’t bad.

The next morning, before he goes to school, he writes: _I want to watch you play guitar and write your cheesy music that you’re gonna change the world with someday. Tell you to shut the window at night because it’s too cold outside and you’re crazy for sleeping that way, like you enjoy being so cold you have to curl up tight. It’s not fun, doing that, especially not under the staircase at school, but I won’t tell you that because it’s not something you should have to know._

 _I have so much I want to give you. I never know if it will be enough but I don’t have anything left to give._ )

 

It all blows up on a Friday night, because of course it does; a Tuesday would be too inconvenient of a time.

He’s on his way home from a late shift at the grocery store, the streetlamps flickering as he walk by. The sky was clear this morning, but now it’s clouded over. He runs into Archie near the old site of the drive-in. It’s not there anymore, obviously, but Jughead likes to think he can feel the ghosts of the hundreds of people who’d visited over the years. Places like that must be some kind of haunted; the ground will never change, no matter what’s built over it.

“Jug,” he says, “We found something.”

“What?” he blinks, because he was expecting a hello or at least a ‘where the fuck have you been lately’.

“We found something,” he repeats, “About the shooter.”

Jughead is suddenly very aware that he’s wearing the jacket right now. He doesn’t wear it to work, even though Ricky does, but it’s cold out.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Ronnie and the others and me, we found something.”

“What is it?”

Archie glances this way and that, like someone might be listening, “Me and Ronnie were talking to this guy from across the river, who said he knew shit about what happened.”

“What guy?” Jughead asks, suspicious by nature.

Archie shrugs, “He said he was a—python, or something—”

“A _python?_ ” he cuts in, “As in the gang?”

“Yeah, I guess; you know them?”

Jughead shakes his head, lowering his voice a little, “My dad did this deal with them once, I think,”

“What kinda deal?”

“I dunno, I just know it didn’t go well, he was pissed for weeks—they’re shady people, Arch.”

“So are the Serpents,” Archie points out.

“Not this kinda shady—they deal hard shit, like, Clifford Blossom level,” he pauses, because suddenly they’re pretty high on the ‘who’s dealing Clifford Blossom’s drugs, now?’ scale. “What did he say about it?”

“He wouldn’t tell us very much,” Archie says, sounding disappointed; vaguely, Jughead wonders if he walked into the Python’s place the same way he walked into the Serpent’s, varsity jacket and all, and wonders how many times he’ll have to do it before it gets through his head that it’s a shitty idea, “But he said he’s pretty sure the guy lives here.”

“In town?”

“Yeah, on the Southside. It has to be a Serpent, Jug.”

Jughead just shakes his head, unconvinced, “That doesn’t make sense, Archie. Why would a Python know shit about it if _he_ wasn’t involved?”

“Rumors spread,” Archie says, insistent, “Word gets around.”

“If it’s a goddamn rumor, then it probably isn’t true,” Jughead shoots back.

“There’s always _some_ truth behind a rumor.”

“You’re acting like you haven’t been in school for the last ten years of your life,” Jughead says, irritated, “Rumors are bullshit that people make up because they’re mad or bored or wanna fuck with someone. People’ve spread plenty of shit about the Serpents before, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re doing it again.”

“You’re taking their side?” Archie asks, sounding hurt enough to give Jughead whiplash.

“I’m not ‘taking a side’, Arch, this isn’t a fucking _war._ If the guy doesn’t have anything concrete, he’s not a reliable source.”

“A Serpent _shot_ my dad—”

“You don’t know that—”

“And you’re defending them?”

“The people I know didn’t shoot your dad.”

“What about the people you don’t know? Or are you suddenly friends with every criminal in town?”

“Fuck off, Archie, being a Serpent isn’t illegal.”

“Shooting someone is.”

“Nobody shot anyone, Jesus Christ.”

“You don’t know that,”

“Neither do you! Why are you so sure it was a Serpent?”

“It makes sense, everyone thinks so; the sheriff thinks so.”

“The sheriff had to wait for five teenagers to solve a murder because he couldn’t do it himself. And he doesn’t like us, anyways; someone could have a heart attack and he’d find a way to put it on us.”

Archie tightens, shoulders pinching together like they’re strung up by wire, “I can’t believe you’re—you’ve been acting like—”

“Like what?” Jughead dares quietly; he thinks this isn’t about the shooter at all.

“You’re acting like—what everyone says you are. You’re acting Southside. You’re acting like a Serpent.”

“I’m acting like me,” Jughead says helplessly, “I’ve always been like this, Archie. I’ve never been like you, I don’t have a nice house or a great dad to go back to every night. This is my life; it’s always been my fucking life.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Archie says, like it’s that fucking simple, “You didn’t have to join your dad’s gang; you’re the one who always said we aren’t our parents.”

“I’m not,” Jughead says, “I’m not my dad.”

“You’re acting like it,”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s like I—like we don’t even matter to you, anymore,” he continues, “Like you found better, criminal friends you can set schools on fire with and shit.”

“Beats getting the shit kicked out of me ‘cause some rich kid never got enough attention as a kid,” he shoots back, voice hard to hide the hurt, “I thought everyone would be happy to finally get the Southside trailer trash out of the school.”

“You’re not trash Jug,” Archie says, like he has a right to.

“It’s what everyone says, though. It’s what you were gonna say, wasn’t it?”

“Jug—”

“Wasn’t it?” Archie opens his mouth to say something, but Jughead doesn’t want to hear it, “I’m not suddenly a different person; I’m wearing a jacket. It doesn’t change who I am, it just—changes how you think of me. And that’s on you, not me. Don’t drag my friends into some stupid investigation because you’re mad at me.”

“I’m trying to find out who _shot my dad_ ,” Archie says, fire back.

“And I’m trying to prove it wasn’t the Serpents.”

“You don’t care about my dad,” Archie accuses, voice cutting to the core, “You just care about keeping your Serpents buddies out of jail.”

“Fuck you, Archie,” he says. It’s all falling apart, is the thing. Archie is looking at him like he doesn’t know him. They’re supposed to go to the movies this weekend, were planning to drive up out of town and everything to see that goddamn clown movie again. Thunder claps in the sky; Jughead feels the first drop of rain on the tip of his nose.

“I’ll find out who it is by myself.” Archie says.

“Great,” Jughead stands there for a moment or two, in the rain, like if he waits long enough, every shitty thing they said will go away, “Good fucking luck,” he says when nothing happens.

Turns sharp on his heel and forces his legs to move, even though they don’t want to, like they want to stay and wait for Archie to say something else. Archie doesn’t say anything else, so Jughead walks faster.

He doesn’t stop until he turns the corner. Waits until he’s sure he’s out of sight before he puts a hand on the wall to steady himself.

Fuck, he thinks, crossing his arm tight tight tight, like he can keep the rain out if he just holds tight enough. Needs to keep his heart from spilling all over the pavement.

He keeps walking.

The argument has him feeling emotionally charged in a way he hasn't felt in months and months, long enough that he'd forgotten the way his heart beat up into his throat and how hard it was to breathe through that. The rain is such a fucking cliche, catching on his eyelashes and soaking into his bones. Chilling him instead of cleansing him. Of his sins, whatever they are. Whatever he is. All fucked up, not wired right.

He doesn’t notice the car pulling up beside him until it’s close enough to reach out and touch it.

“Jug?” he hears someone say, and looks up to see Ricky, window rolled down, squinting out at him.

“Hey,” he says; his voice catches, comes out as little more than a whisper, so he says it again.

“You okay?” Ricky asks, “The hell you doing in the rain?”

Jughead shrugs his heavy shoulders, not bothering to wipe at his eyes; his face is wet from the rain, anyways, “Just walking.”

“Home, or what?”

Jughead just shrugs again; he doesn’t know what to do with the pounding in his chest, breath coming in short bursts. He feels like he might vibrate out of his skin.

“Get in,” Ricky says; Jughead shakes his head weakly, blinking hard to try and get his shit together.

“I’m good,” he says, “I just—gotta clear my head.”

“Hey,” Ricky says, voice softer; pitched low, “I’ll give you a ride, it’s no big deal. It’s cold as shit, dude, you’ll catch something.”

Jughead breathes deep, runs a shaking hand through his hair, and pulls the door open. He’s gonna get the seat all wet, but there’s nothing much he can do about that. It’ll dry. He peels his jacket off, all stuck to his arms like it doesn’t wanna let go of him. He gets stuck, for a split second, but Ricky reaches over to untangle his sleeves.

That’s the last straw, probably. He’s so fucking nice, is the thing, hands warm and lingering against his wrists.

Jughead buries his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, forehead pressed against the cool dashboard, before he can do something stupid like start crying. He feels raw, tender like the time he scrubbed his hands too hard after a fight at school, trying to get the dirt out from under his fingernails, the blood on his knuckles, dripped down his palms where he pressed them to his nose like he could stop the bleeding by force of will.

Archie hates him. Doesn’t want anything to do with him. He knew this would happen, eventually, knew it for sure after last summer. It doesn’t work out, is the thing. Not with Fred and his dad and not with he and Archie, he and Betty, his dad and his mom.

Fuck, he thinks. Fuck.

He feels something heavy settle over his shoulders, a familiar weight. He breathes deep and curls further into it, letting the warmth soak into him and replace the chill in his bones. Thinks about Cheryl sitting in Veronica’s living room in front of the fireplace, half-drowned and freezing cold. Wonders how she’s doing, now, because they were never the best of friends in the first place, and he’d left before anything more could come of it. He doesn't know how long he sits like that, eyes closed, some faint music playing on the classic 80s station, just knows that Ricky doesn’t stop driving and the rain doesn’t stop coming down hard.

“Shit,” he breathes, rubbing at his eyes and looking up. They're near the edges of the town by now, but Ricky doesn't look like he plans on stopping soon. “Where're we going?” He asks, flinching at the raspy sound of his own voice.

Ricky shrugs loosely with one shoulder, “There’s this little diner place outside of town. I know it's not Pop’s, but they have great onion rings.” And then, when Jughead doesn't say anything, “I can take you home if you want, though.”

Jughead shakes his head, “No, it’s fine, I…don’t really wanna go back, yet.”

Ricky just hums in acknowledgement, flicking the windshield wipers onto a lower setting. Jughead reaches up to rub at his nose, shifting to get more comfortable in the seat, and realizes that it’s Ricky’s Serpents jacket draped over his shoulders. Ricky is wearing this light blue shirt, long sleeved, nothing like Jughead would ever picture. He looks off without it, looks young, like a teenager instead of a gang member, even though he’s both. Jughead wonders if the jacket adds years when you put it on, and if maybe that’s why everyone looks at you different when you do. He decides not to say anything about it.

Ricky turns off the main road about five minutes later, pulls into this old-timey diner, the kind you find in either the middle of nowhere or just off the highway all over the country. There’s some kind of magic to them, the way they’re still here after so long. There’s hardly anyone here this time of night, just them and an old man in the back corner, a couple sitting in a booth near the front. They don’t look up when they walk in. Like they’re painted into the scenery of the place, forever a part of it. Stuck, like everyone else in this goddamn town.

“So,” Ricky says once they’ve sat down; he’d ordered for both of them: a large onion ring and two coffees, _please,_ he’d said, with extra emphasis on the please, enough for the waitress to roll her eyes a little, “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Toni says talking about shit is healthy.”

“Well, Toni isn’t here right now,” Jughead points out, maybe a little harder than he meant to, “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

“It’s almost midnight, and you were out walking in the rain. You look like someone beat the shit out of you but in, like, an emotional way.”

Jughead would laugh if he could, but he can’t, so he just smiles a little, “I look like shit all the time.”

“Not all the time,” Ricky says, because Ricky’s an asshole but he’s also really nice. “Like I said, the jacket suits you.”

Jughead feels his smile fade a little, because—well, that was the problem, wasn’t it. “Does it really?”

“Is that a bad thing?” Ricky asks, and he doesn’t sound defensive, just carefully curious.

“I don’t know,” Jughead says, “I don’t…want it to be. But a lot of people think—Archie—” he cuts himself off as the waitress sets his cup in front of him, takes a breath and gives a quick thank you.

“Archie,” Ricky repeats, like he’s testing out the name, “That’s that ginger kid, right? From Pop’s?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, ripping open a sugar packet to pour into his coffee, “That’s the one.”

“What happened?”

Jughead rubs at his eyes, “We had an argument.”

“‘Bout what?”

He shrugs, feeling suddenly exhausted, “I don’t know. Stupid shit. He’s—mad, or something, thinks that I,” he pauses, using a split second to weigh the pros and cons before realizing he’s too tired for anymore critical thinking tonight, “His dad got shot a few months ago. At Pops.”

“That was _his_ dad?” Ricky asks, eyes wide, because someone gets shot at Pop’s and everybody hears about it, because it’s _Pop’s._

“Yeah,” he nods, “He thinks—he thinks the shooter might’ve been a Serpent.”

Ricky goes very still for a short second, and Jughead is afraid he finally pissed him off, but the tension is released with a tired sigh, and a shake of his head, “That’s--it wasn't, there's no way it was. Why the hell would he think—?”

“I don’t know, he thinks maybe the shooter was hired by someone, but…”

“Not every single bad thing that happens in this town is our fault,” Ricky says, like he should be angry but just can’t find the energy. It’s almost one am; they shouldn’t be here, but they are. Jughead should be mad, but he’s just tired.

“He’s mad, because he thinks I’m— _betraying_ him, or something. That I’m _choosing sides_ , but I don’t—I don’t understand why there always has to be _sides_. He’s never cared about the stupid North-South rivalry bullshit before, and never agreed with the shit people would always say, and I don’t understand why that changed.”

Ricky just shakes his head, “Can’t ever trust those Northside kids,” he says empathetically, “Adults, either. Always fucking us over.”

“But Archie’s not like that,” Jughead says, wiping furiously at his eyes, because he is not going to cry over Archie in some diner at one in the morning, “He’s never been like that, and I don’t want—I don’t wanna lose him over something stupid like this. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

Ricky is quiet for a long moment; looks at him like he’s searching for something Jughead doesn’t know if he wants him to find.

“Do _you_ think it was a Serpent?” he asks; Jughead watches his fingers curl together, and realizes with a start that he’s still wearing Ricky’s jacket. Ricky is the one without a shield up, but Jughead feels like he’s been peeled open and left there for everyone to see, even if everyone is three strangers and his relatively new friend. He feels himself run his hands through his hair and pull his beanie off, just to make it even.

“No, I don’t,” he says, “I don’t want to,” and then, because everything else has already been laid out, “You haven’t heard anything, though, right? You would tell me if you had?”

“Of course,” Ricky says earnestly, leaning forwards, putting his weight on his elbows, “I haven’t heard shit--no one would be stupid enough to pull something like that right now, ‘specially since the sheriff’s been poking around more than usual ‘cause people don’t wanna believe a rich dad killed his own kid,” and then, like an afterthought, “Rich people are fucked up. Wasn’t the dude running some drug cartel shit?”

There goes the Serpents as a ‘who’s selling Clifford Blossom’s drugs now that he’s dead?’ suspect, Jughead thinks gratefully.

“Yeah,” he says, “That maple syrup business shit was the cover.”

“Fucked up,” Ricky repeats.

“Fucked up,” Jughead agrees.

“Like yeah, my parents hate each other but at least they never tried to _kill_ me,” he takes a sip of his coffee, making a face afterwards—probably cold by now, Jughead thinks absently, “And they took the bi thing pretty well, all things considered.”

Jughead glances up at him, but Ricky is suddenly very interested in the empty parking lot outside.

“If this is the part where I ask if you have some kinda weird crush on me,” Jughead says carefully, “it’s not gonna happen.”

Ricky smiles at that, letting out a heavy breath, “I know,” he laughs, sounding embarrassed, “It’s just—you never know how it’s gonna go, y’know?”

“Yeah,” even though he doesn't, exactly. He's working up to it.

“I knew you weren’t straight,” Ricky says triumphantly anyways.

“You’re the second person who’s said that to me. Is it really that easy to tell?”

“Yeah,” Ricky says without hesitation, quick enough that it startles a laugh out of Jughead.

“Shit,” he says, “What is it that gives it away?”

Ricky just shrugs, a secretive grin playing on his lips, “I just know. You have this…vibe.”

“Here I thought all those bullies just stole their insults from 80’s teen movies,” he says, which gets Ricky to laugh again, “Turns out everyone knew but me.”

“It takes time, sometimes,” Ricky says, “Toni says she knew she liked girls _and_ boys since she was like seven, but it took me a while to figure things out.”

Jughead nods vaguely; he still doesn’t know if he’s figured anything out ever. He says this, and Ricky throws an onion ring at him and says, “Take your time, man, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

Jughead smiles vaguely, flicking it back at him. They fall into a comfortable silence after that. His hair has mostly dried, and he thinks his hat had shielded his hearing aid pretty well, because he can still hear. That’s good. His coffee is cold by now, which isn’t as good, but it wasn’t very good coffee to begin with. Archie hates him now, maybe, which is also not good.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” he says again, “But I don’t know how to fix it. Everything is so different, and fucked up, now. I don’t ever do anything right.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ricky says after a moment, “I’m pretty glad you transferred, even if it was under shit circumstances. The others are, too.”

It’s so earnest Jughead has to look away. Pulls the jacket a little tighter around him like it’ll help him fade out.

“I’m serious,” Ricky says laughing a little, “Toni finally has someone to talk about books and pretentious pop-culture shit with—no one else gets that stuff. Hot Dog loves you. Scotty likes like, everyone, but you’re included, obviously. Diana—”

“Okay, I get it,” Jughead says, covering his smile with his hand, feeling something juvenile and unfamiliar, “You can stop now.”

Ricky does stop, looking very proud of himself. “It’s not just ‘cause of who your dad is,” he does add, catching Jughead’s eye, “And if you’re not, like, comfortable wearing the jacket anymore or whatever, we’re not just gonna drop you, y’know? If you need time to sort shit out, that’s fine.”

Jughead is quiet. He feels all kinds of out of his depth here. He’s not used to this at all. God, Ricky is so fucking nice.

“Thanks, Ricky,” he finally says, because it dawns on him that he has a lot to thank him for, “Maybe the jacket does suit me. Yours is more comfortable, though.”

Ricky laughs. The rain almost lets up.

 

Monday, Ricky buys him a little coffee from the QT before school, which is nice, and Scotty starts a debate that lasts the whole day.

“If a fish is in water,” he says, a dramatic pause in the middle, “is it wet?”

“Yes, what the fuck,” Jughead answers immediately, “Water is wet. If it’s in water, it’s wet.”

“If a fish is surrounded by water,” Scotty goes at lunch, elbows on the table like he’s about to lay out the world’s secrets in a shitty cafeteria, “is isn’t wet. If you take the fish out of the water, then it’s wet.”

“If I’m surrounded by air, I’m still dry. Like, being surrounded by something doesn’t make me not that something,” Diana says, “If a fish is in water, it’s still wet.”

“Water is, by definition, wet,” Toni says around her spoon, “It’s wet. That’s what it is.”

“But listen,” he says later, out on the floor in front of the couch at Ricky’s dad’s place, “If you spill water on yourself—”

Jughead snorts around the cheeto in this mouth, while Ricky laughs and shoves him with his shoulder.

 _“Listen,_ ” he insists, shoving him back, "if you spill water on yourself you’re considered wet, right? Yeah? So if a little water is on you, you’re wet, but if you're completely in the water, you’re not wet.”

“I’m not dry if I’m in the fucking water, Scotty,” Diana says.

“Think about it, man,” he says, shaking his head.

They do think about it. They end up sprawled in various positions in the living room, the smell of marijuana in the air because Ricky’s dad is out and won’t be coming back till the morning, Ricky says. Plus, they’ve been working their asses off, he says, they deserves a break.

“Okay,” Jughead starts; he’s been thinking about his bullshit for thirty minutes because the idea got stuck in his head and won’t leave him alone, “I think that if you’re in water, you’re wet. But you don’t feel like you’re wet, because when you feel wet it’s ‘cause of the contrast between the air and the water, right? So if there’s no air, you don’t feel the contrast, so it doesn't _feel_ like you’re wet.”

“So a fish in water _is_ wet, but it don’t feel like it’s wet?” Scotty asks.

“Yeah,” Jughead nods.

“Strongly agree,” Toni says from her place on the couch.

“Fuckin’ fine,” Scotty says eventually, sighing dramatically, “I can go with that. I still think it isn’t wet.”

“We’re _done_ talking about this,” Diana says, laughing.

“We should tell secrets,” Scotty says, halfway through an episode of Bob Ross that someone decided to put on.

“Are we seven?” Diana asks, but she’s smiling a little.

“It’ll be fun,” he insists, “Every time you take a hit you gotta tell a secret. I’ll start. I’m getting a B minus in calculus.”

“Everyone knows that.”

“I’m actually surprised he’s not getting a D,” Jughead says.

“I’m good at it, I’m always saying,” Scotty says, passing the blunt to Toni, “It’s the stupid attendance.”

“I broke up with Mikaela a few weeks ago,” she says, taking a long drag, “But…I met this girl the other day, when I was visiting Julian’s mom.”

“In the hospital?”

“Yeah,”

“Ooh, what’s her name?” Scott asks.

Toni just smiles, passing it to Ricky, “That’s my own business. I don’t want you assholes meddling in my shit.”

“Sometimes I just use water instead of hair gel,” Ricky says, “That shit’s expensive.”

Jughead brings it to his lips and closes his eyes as he exhales, letting the warmth settle into his skin, “My real name is Forsythe,” he says.

“It’s fucking what?” someone says, probably Diana.

Jughead just shrugs, grinningly loosely, “Why d’you think I have this weird-ass nickname?”

Diana tilts her head as if to say _good point,_ and snatches the blunt from his slack fingers, “Mr Waters propositioned me again,” she says bluntly, “but I said no. Told him I’d get him arrested if he tried shit again.”

“Fuck yeah you did,” Toni says, and Diana laughs.

They go in circles like that for a while, losing their inhibitions more and more. It’s fun, thinking that the world doesn’t exist outside of this room.

“Once, I got high and watched The Shining; it changed me as a person.”

“I’ve never seen a single Star Wars movie in my life.”

“E.T. scared the shit out of me when I was little and I haven’t seen it since.”

“I went to juvie when I was ten, ‘cuz they thought I was trying to burn down the school with a box of matches.”

(“ _Ten?_ ” Ricky asks, laughing a little, “With _matches?_ ”)

“My brother is getting married soon, but his fiancee is a _bitch_.”

“I think I’m asexual,” Jughead says on his next turn; just kinda slips out, slow and sweet like honey, the words making themselves known without asking him first.

“Sweet,” Ricky says, “I’m bi as shit.”

“We know,” Diana laughs, and that’s that. Diana talks about the bright pink sequined jacket she ‘borrowed’ from some girl in second grade and never gave back, and he feels lighter. A little less pressure on his chest. No one’s telling him he’s wrong to feel the way he feels.

Diana drifts off to sleep somewhere in the middle, head propped up on one hand, and Scotty wanders off to find a blanket from somewhere, even though Ricky tells him there’s one right behind the couch.

Jughead smiles vaguely; he remembers searching Archie’s closet in the middle of the night when they were ten, trying to find another blanket without waking him up. He had woken him up, in the end, but Archie had just gestured at him until he crawled up into the bed because he didn’t wanna get up and _my bed is big, it’s fine._ It’s the same thing he’d said a few months ago, before another mattress had been pulled into the room: _just sleep up here, it’s no big deal, the floor isn’t very soft._

He watches the smoke curl through the air, and he exhales, something warm and new unfurling in his chest, “I think I’m in love with my best friend,” he breathes.

“I appreciate it,” Toni says from her spot on the couch, “But I just met a girl.”

“Fuck you,” he says, sitting forwards to shove at her, “I like boys.”

“I know,” she laughs, “You like that ginger Archie guy.”

“Shit,” he says, running a hand through his hair and sinking back into the couch cushion, “I wanna hold his hand.”

“I think he wants to hold yours, too.”

“No way,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Yeah way,” she insists, “I’ve only seen him like one time, but he looked at you like you hung the fuckin’ stars in the sky. It was disgusting.”

Jughead thinks about that for a moment, “Maybe love is too strong of a word,” he says, picking up on his train of thought from earlier. Toni rolls with it.

“But you wanna be his boyfriend, though, yeah?”

“Dunno,” he says, “I can’t imagine ever being his, his _boyfriend._ I’m not like--Veronica or Valerie or any of the girls he’s dated.”

“Cuz you’re not a girl,” Scotty says helpfully from across the room; he’d found his way back.

“Yeah, exactly,” Jughead nods, “He likes dating girls.”

“Well, why don’t you ask him about it?” Toni asks.

“He’s mad at me.”

“Tell him you love him; he’ll probably stop being mad.”

Jughead snorts, letting the smile linger, “Or he’ll be more mad. Love doesn’t solve the world’s problems.”

“Maybe we just haven’t loved hard enough,” Scotty says in that vague way he says everything. Someone throws a pillow at him, but he catches it and props his head up. Jughead lets his eyes slide shut.

He maybe kinda loves Archie, he thinks, still reeling from the discovery. Which is a strong word. But he wants to hold his hand and watch his fingers move against his guitar and go to his stupid football games and sleep in his bed sometimes like he used to. It’s not a lot, what he has to offer, but it’s everything he is, and it’s everything he has. He just doesn’t know if it’s enough. He hopes it could be.

“It is,” he hears Toni say, patting his shoulder; realizes he must’ve been talking out loud the way he does when he’s tired, “It’s enough, Jug. ‘N if he doesn’t think it is, fuck him, right?”

Jughead smiles, leans into the touch and says, “I wanna watch Star Wars.”

Toni laughs for three straight minutes.

 

They’re halfway through _The Empire Strikes Back_ because of course Ricky has all the movies, Scotty half-asleep but still laughing every time R2D2 makes a noise, when Jughead fishes his phone out of his pocket. Squinting against the artificial light, he copies the link of the most recent untitled document.

 _I’m sorry I called ur investigation stupid,_ he then types out to Archie. Hits send.

Before he can change his vaguely hazy mind, he sends the doc link, too, and _this is all I’ve been able to write lately, if u wanna read it_

He stares at the words for a moment, two, before he decides he’s not gonna wait for a response like a girl in a teen romance movie. If Archie doesn’t wanna hear what he has to say, that’s fine. He’s tired, anyways, so he shoves his phone under the pillow he’s propped on and makes himself comfortable.

“Hey, Ricky?” he asks, because Ricky is the only one still conscious enough to answer.

“Yeah?”

“You think the end of the world will come at nighttime?”

He isn’t sure if Ricky knows the movie well enough to quote it or if it’s just coincidence, and maybe he hasn't seen it at all, but, “Nah,” he says, a little smile in his voice, “At dawn, I think.”

Jughead hums in agreement. Dawn is on it’s way by now, probably. He doesn’t wanna be awake when the world ends this time, so he lets himself drift off to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck this chapter i prob rewrote the argument scene like 3 times and im still not satisfied with how it turned out. also im upset that i wont be able to finish this before s2 comes out, because it's going to completely demolish all of this and idk if i'll have the willpower to finish it when i know truly how it'll all go down,,
> 
> (also have you seen [this video](https://www.instagram.com/p/BY2FwmHAT41/?taken-by=saxualwaffles/) because i've been thinking about it all week) 
> 
> comment to get me through this last week before break i have so much shit i have to do
> 
> (also hmu on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) anytime yo!!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before The Second Argument, as he's dubbed it in his head, he had written in the doc that wasn't supposed to be read but probably has been by now: _I don't think there's anything wrong with me. Which is weird, because I've always felt wrong around everything but now I don't. I feel wrong around you but that's because I want to hold your hand and don't know how to ask._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st quarter is finally over!!!!! the most surreal thing that's happened to me so far is finding out that my physics teacher's younger brother is a rlly shitty soundcloud rapper with one single rlly shitty song. 2nd most surreal was my friend bringing an entire bottle of louisiana hot sauce to lunch one day (which is 100% smth jug would do)
> 
> if the end of this chapter seems a little rushed it's bc im gonna be busy the next few days (read: marathoning avatar:tla with my s.o.) and then wednesday is the s2 premiere so i wanted to at least get this one out before it all gets blown out of the water. i'll come polish it off when i get the time. 
> 
> im warning u right now, this is THE MOST self-indulgent chapter yet like GOD

 

**iv. falling action**

 

Jughead’s fingers hover over the keyboard. He can feel the warm hum of the laptop underneath them; he should probably let it sleep soon, he thinks. Doesn’t wanna let it overheat. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, like this, but he knows he should probably go to bed.

The thing is, he doesn’t think there’s anything left to add to The Story. He’s not sure how he could release it to the world unfinished. He’s not sure how he could get rid of it. 

“Do you think I should delete my novel?” he asks.

FP’s fingers stop their tapping across the table. He shifts a little, puts his weight on his elbows and brings his hands together in the nervous way he does whenever Jughead asks him something lately. Earnest in a way that seems too young. Like he doesn’t wanna mess it up. 

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” Jughead says.

“Why you thinkin’ about deleting it?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats, stops himself from mimicking his dad’s position, “I’m not done, but I don’t think there’s anything more to say.”

“So you’re just gonna get rid of it?”

He shrugs, “You told me to move on, before. I didn’t listen, and look where that got us.”

“It helped you solve a murder,” his dad says, leaning forwards, “Don’t ever listen to shit I say, you know by now; you’re smarter than I’ll ever be.”

_ I believed you killed a kid without a second thought, _ he doesn’t say,  _ that’s not smart.  _

Instead, he says, “You didn’t answer my question, you just asked me more questions.”

His dad smiles vaguely, tired eyes crinkling at the corners, “‘S not my question to answer. I can’t decide for you.”

Jughead sighs. Rubs at his eyes. “It’d be nice if you could, though.” 

“Yeah,” his dad says, “I know.” 

 

The thing is, life keeps moving forwards. It doesn't wait around for Archie to text back, to call back, to roll up to the house in his dad's truck. Doesn't wait around for Jughead to regret hitting send, for him to say fuck it and move on even though he doesn't mean it. 

The night before The Second Argument, as he's dubbed it in his head (the first being the Argument that wasn't really an argument, just Archie kind of slowly ignoring him until they weren't really speaking to each other anymore), he had written in the doc that wasn't supposed to be read but probably has been by now: _ I don't think there's anything wrong with me. Which is weird, because I've always felt wrong around everything but now I don't. I feel wrong around you but that's because I want to hold your hand and don't know how to ask.  _

He thinks of Archie reading that line, in his bed maybe, under his sheets, or maybe during lunch, phone hidden under the table. Maybe reading it out loud, to himself, or maybe to someone else because it's actually funny and over-dramatic like the rest of him and that's all it is. Maybe he thinks it's stupid. Thinks it's weird and Jughead actually is wrong, and reading a few online articles and then telling a few new friends around the smoke in the air doesn't change anything. 

(He also thinks it's one way of asking, even if it's not the right way.) 

The June before eighth grade, Archie went to this little summer camp a few towns over. Fred had offered to take Jughead, because he  _ didn't want Archie to go the whole month without any friends _ , even though both of them knew Archie had never had any trouble making friends before. Offered to pay, too. Jughead tagged along because he’d never been to summer camp before, no matter how much his dad had grumbled about it.

It was fun, even though Jughead had never been a very sporty kid. They spent a whole month swimming in the lake and learning how to tie knots and shit. They told lots of stories around the campfire, made-up and real. One night, ghost stories turned into memory sharing. One boy talked about how he and his family went cliff-jumping last spring, and how his dad traveled all over the world so they did cool shit like that all the time. Another talked about taking a girl he had a crush on to the movies last month. Archie talked about making junior varsity on the middle school football team.

When it was Jughead’s turn to tell a story, all eyes on him, he’d realized that he didn't have anything to say. He didn't think anyone wanted to hear the about the time he spent in juvie, or about the movies he was super into at the time, or about his sister’s elementary school plays. His dad had lost another job, recently. The closest thing to a vacation he’d ever been on was learning to swim down in Sweetwater, his dad insisting that it was exactly like the beach, just smaller. He had felt so suddenly  _ outside _ , like he was faking something. Like he didn't belong there.

“Jug fought a bully off last year,” Archie had said, saving him from the silence. 

“Really?” someone had asked.

All Jughead had actually done was kick Chuck Clayton for trying to shove him into a locker like some bully in an 80’s movie and then get detention for three days for ‘starting a fight’, but Archie had looked encouraging enough that Jughead had leaned forwards and said, “Yeah. He was a real big football guy, too.”   


He’d always been good at spinning stories, so he spun this one, too. The other boys laughed, clapped him on the shoulder and moved on. Jughead had listened to the kid next to him talk about his new dog, and felt remarkably out of place the whole time. 

He finds himself thinking about it at school one day: sitting around the campfire with Archie as the only person there who knew how much he didn't belong. Who knew how little he was worth, but still somehow wanted him around. Having all eyes on him and realizing his complete mediocrity. 

It's how he feels now, vaguely. Like he's nothing all that interesting. Definitely nothing Archie would ever want to hold hands with, because he's not here to save him from the silence, this time. Jughead wonders why he ever opened that new doc in the first place. 

 

Ricky likes to take pictures. On his phone, mostly, because the only camera he has is apparently old as shit and got dropped from a high place sometime in the last four or five years—‘ _ and honestly, who has time for shitty cameras when you have a perfectly good one on your phone, right? _ ’ 

Toni tells Jughead, offhand one day, that she’d actually gotten him a second-hand polaroid camera for his last birthday, but he doesn’t use it very much. Says he wants to save it for the important shit. 

The point is he’s always snapping pictures, or recording little snippets of video for his snapchat story or whatever the hell else he needs them for. It’s a little unnerving, at first, because FP wasn’t exactly a sentimental, ‘take a lot of pictures of his kids’ kinda guy, but he gets used to it pretty quickly. Ricky’s good at doing it on the low; a lot of candids, probably, and blurry shit because things are always moving, lately. 

They’re sitting in that shady little diner just outside of town—Jughead’s been kind of maybe avoiding Pop’s lately, if only because he doesn’t wanna run into Archie yet, and Ricky comes out here more often than he thought so he just tags along when he can—Jughead slumped in front of his laptop, skimming absently over The Goddamn Story He Can’t Finish, and Ricky scrolling through something on his phone.

“You think I should delete my story?” he asks again, because he decides he needs a second opinion. A first opinion, because his dad hadn't actually been all that helpful.

Ricky glances up, “The one about the whole murder case thing?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says; he’d mentioned it once, the way they’re always mentioning things, testing the water, sharing a little without sharing too much, that he was working on a novel. Explained in brief terms and vague hand gestures what it was supposed to be about. 

“Why?” he asks. Jughead sighs, rubbing at his eyes at the deja vu. 

“It’s not what it’s supposed to be, anymore. Or I guess it wouldn’t be what I wanted it to be if I finished it. And I don’t know how to finish it; I’ve been trying for months.” 

“I mean, it seems like you put a lotta work into it. And it probably would’ve been hard to write about a kid you knew getting killed.” 

Jughead just shrugs vaguely, because it wasn’t, really. It was a story.  _ Everyone has their own way of coping _ , Mr Andrews reminds him in the back of his mind, hand warm on his shoulder where Jughead was curled up on the couch and wondering aloud what kind of message a step-by-step murder story would give the sheriff.  _ And he can’t take your laptop without a warrant, _ he’d also said, _ which he doesn’t have. It’s okay. _

“I dunno,” he says, “I just…don’t know if I’ll ever figure out how to finish. And no one wants to read an unfinished story.”

Ricky seems to consider for a moment, “Toni said it takes the ‘Name Of The Wind’ guy years to write his books. She’s been waiting for fucking ever for him to release the last one. And people still read ‘em.” 

Jughead is quiet for a moment. The last thing he’d solidly typed out was the sentence about Fred getting shot. 

“Plus,” Ricky says, pulling something up on his phone; he slides it across the table. Jughead leans forward, and sees a vaguely blurry snapshot of he and Toni at a lunch table in the middle of the school cafeteria; he’s saying something, a hand caught mid-gesture the way he talks when he isn’t busy keeping himself small. Toni is smiling the way she does when she’s listening to Scotty say some stupid shit, or Diana complain; something fond. “When you talk about it, you sound like you know something we don’t, and you’re like, waiting to reveal it to the world or something. I think it’d be fuckin’ shame if you never did.” 

Jughead studies the picture for a moment longer. He’s never liked his smile much, when he thought about it at all, but it doesn’t bother him. He was wearing the jacket that day. He doesn’t look out of place.

“Okay,” he says eventually, sliding the phone back across the table, “I’ll finish it someday, maybe.”

“Think I could read it when you do?”

“Sure.” 

“Looking forward to it,” Ricky smiles. 

Jughead rolls his eyes a little, but smiles back. After Ricky's refocused on his phone, Jughead leans forwards and deletes the last sentence he'd typed out. 

 

Jughead lies in his brand new bed that isn’t brand new anymore but still good, and thinks about the mattress he’d slept on in Archie’s room, pressed up against the side of the bed. It was a good mattress, pulled in from the little ‘guest bedroom’ they had tucked in the corner of the second floor. Fred had offered the room to him, but it had felt too much like the projection room, all closed-off and small. He’d taken Archie’s floor instead; no one had offered him the spare room again, and he never asked. 

“I got hot,” Archie had said one night, voice small. Maybe he had whispered it into the darkness of the room, letting the words hang in the air instead of getting lost in the rustle of the wind because he always likes sleeping with the window cracked open. “That’s what people kept saying. It was weird. More attention and shit, like I was suddenly a different person.”

He could’ve been bragging, but he wasn’t, because Archie didn’t brag like that. Used to brag about the Hot Wheels he got for his birthday, or about Betty— _ my _ friend, he’d tell people—winning some student of the month award shit, but not about things like this. He’d tell Jughead about kissing a girl quickly behind the bleachers, whisper it like it was a secret in the air of their treehouse, but never in a show-off kinda way. 

His voice was shaking. He wasn’t bragging. 

“And I don’t…it’s the reason—because I  _ got hot _ , or whatever, she—” he cut himself off, like the emotion in his voice was surprising himself, “It’s why Geral—Jennifer, or whoever the hell, was even like,  _ interested. _ If I hadn’t, then she wouldn’t’ve cared. She didn’t actually care.”

Jughead, from his spot on the floor, could see the twist of Archie’s hand fisted in the sheets. Bringing them closer, like if he pulled tight enough he could keep everything away. He didn’t know why Archie was talking now, weeks and weeks after the fact, but Jughead thought he probably needed to.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he’d said, keeping his voice pitched just as low; if he spoke too loud he would disturb something in the air, “It’s still not your fault.”

“But it’s like, it’s a good thing, you know? Like, it’s supposed to be a good thing—getting hot. People like me.”

“People’ve always liked you, Arch,”

“Not like this,” he’d countered, “And it was so new, and she was so nice, made me feel like, like I was good enough for people to—I don’t know, to like me, or something. Like,  _ like _ -like me.”

“Everyone wants to be liked,” Jughead said, watching the shadows on the ceiling cast from the streetlamp and moonlight mixing together and pouring in, “It’s not wrong to want that.”

“But what we did was wrong; Betty thinks so, my dad thinks so—you think so, you’ve  _ said _ so. I… wanted all of it, I wanted something wrong.”

“She did something wrong,” Jughead said, watching the shadows cast across Archie’s face, this time, the little of it he could see; a tuft of red, half an eye, mouth twisted up, “Not you. She took advantage of you, and she knew it. Everyone wants to be liked,” he repeated. 

Archie had been quiet for a long moment, “She didn’t like me, though. She didn’t care about me, you were right, she just cared about her. She didn’t really like me, and now nobody else likes me ‘cause of what I did to be liked.” 

“That’s not true,” Jughead said, and then, when he got nothing in response, “I still like you.” 

“I’ve been a shitty friend, lately.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly the nicest person, either. But I could never not wanna be your friend. You’re not a bad person, Archie.” 

“Neither are you,” and then, quieter, “I feel like a bad person. I feel…dirty.” 

“You’re not dirty.” 

A car had driven down the street just outside, then. Out of place, because no one was out this time of night in this neighborhood. He had wondered vaguely who it was, what they were doing, but it didn’t really matter. 

“You know how you talk about this town being haunted?” Archie whispered after the noise had died out, “Like, the Drive-In land and stuff, how the memories there’ll never go away.”

“Yeah,” Jughead whispered back. He’d been surprised, a little, that Archie remembered. He knew he talked too much, sometimes, when he was half-asleep and thought he’d unlocked the secrets of the world, going on about stupid shit that made half-sense.

“Do you think I’ll be like that?”

“Haunted?”

“Yeah. Like the bad things I did will never go away.”

“No,” maybe half a lie, because he thought everyone was a little bit haunted; he also thought that didn’t have to be a bad thing—the Drive-In land was a familiar kind of haunted, a little sad, but not scary, like childhood nostalgia—but that wasn’t what Archie needed to hear “You won’t be. You aren’t.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” 

A pause, “You aren’t, either, y’know.”

“Hm?”

“Haunted. There’s nothing wrong with you, either.” 

Jughead had felt something tighten in his chest, then. This wasn’t about him, he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Archie was so good. 

“Thanks, Arch,” he’d said instead. 

He feels something tighten in his chest, now, thinking about it. There are no moonlight shadows on the ceiling, because he hates sleeping with the window cracked open, because he doesn’t need to, not the way he needed to at the drive-in during the night in the middle of the summer. It’s chilly, now, anyways. 

_ I think there’s something wrong with me _ , he’d written. The first line of the untitled document. 

He wonders if Archie still stands by his months-old statement, now that he’s read through Jughead’s mess, his heart all spilled out through his fingertips and into the keyboard. 

I still like you, he had said. 

Lots of people like Archie. Jughead wonders if he’s become just another one of those people. If that’s how Archie sees him now: he got hot, people got interested. Jughead thinks he’s always been interested, but he doesn’t know how to tell him that without actually telling him. Doesn’t know if Archie would even believe him.

He sighs deep, rolling onto his side and burying his face into the pillow. God, he’s such a cliche. When will he die. 

He asks Toni, types it out with tired fingers. 

_ not anytime soon, fucker. also, mood??  _

He smiles faintly. 

**_if i cant die neither can u_ **

Toni sends a frown emoji and:  _ i fucked up w hospital girl _

**_the girl u met at the hospital??_ **

_ fuck u yes _

**_what happened??_ **

_ ok so  _

_ i ran into her at the store this morning, and she was buying some weird energy drink thing and like 3 fancy-ass candles? and i asked her what they were for and she said her mom (who’s the one in the hospital) can only drink liquids rn and she wants nice smelling shit to help her relax  _

_ but the candles were all weird smells?? and im a dumbass so i asked if her mom hated shit like lavender and vanilla or smth and she said she was getting bad ones out of spite and i was like ‘damn u must be mad at her’ and she said ‘yea she hates me’ and i kinda just……….didnt know how to answer so i said nothing and it was rlly awkward  _

**_that’s not even that bad???_ ** Jughead types out after reading her texts over a few times.

_ when will I die _

**_if she didn’t seem offended she probably wasn’t offended, it’s fin_ ** e 

_ she probably thinks i was weirded out or something tho! I got her number a while back and we’ve been talking a lot and i rlly like her i don’t want her to think that i don’t anymore _

**_at least u didn’t piss her off and then get high and send her embarrassing bullshit u wrote and never got a response_ **

_ ok true _

_ shit man he still hasn’t said anything???  _

**_no,_ ** he sends,  **_i think i have more of a right to die than u_ **

_ fuck that guy tbh,  _ Toni sends after a moment or two,  _ if he doesn’t get over himself, drop his ass _

**_he already dropped me, i don’t think i can drop him back_ **

_ sure u can, _ followed by three scissor emojis,  _ snip snip _

Jughead shoots back a shrug emoji. The thing is, he doesn’t just wanna give up on whatever fragile thing they have, but he doesn’t know if he has much of a choice. He thinks he might’ve cut that rope when he put the jacket on. A decade of friendship gone just like that. 

**_tell me more abt hospital girl_ ** , he types out to distract himself.

_ nice try asshole, i still don’t want you meddling in my business _

**_i dont meddle! diana is the meddler, i just offer my wise advice_ **

_ ‘if she doesnt seem offended, she probably isnt offended’……groundbreaking  _

**_fuck u_ **

Toni send a middle finger in response, and he sends one back. He doesn’t push any more, though. If Toni doesn’t want him to know, he’s not gonna force her. It’s her own business, like the whole Archie Dilemma is his own, like Julian’s mom’s hospital bills are the Serpents’ and not anyone else’s. 

He eventually says goodnight to Toni, clicks his phone off and plugs it into charge. Resists the urge to check his phone for a text that still hasn’t come, because he’s trying not to give into cliche completely. It’s whatever. Whatever happens, he can deal with it. It doesn’t matter. 

That night, he dreams about the Drive-In land and the flickering neon of Pop’s  _ Open 24 Hours  _ sign.

 

“If it wasn’t the Serpents, who do you think did it?”

FP shrugs from his usual place across the table. Jughead is back for the second Sunday in a row, because he doesn’t have anything better to do, and his dad hadn’t exactly argued against Fred’s claim before. 

“You must have some idea,” Jughead says, unimpressed, “You’re a gang leader, I’m sure you’ve made some enemies over the years.”

FP looks up sharply, but Jughead doesn’t look away. He’s not six or ten or thirteen anymore, and he’s not the one in prison. 

“You sayin’ this is my fault?” 

Jughead resists the impulse to sigh, because he doesn’t want more than one important person in his life mad at him at a time, “No. I’m just saying you know more about the gang life around here than I do. Archie said he and Veronica talked to a Python.” 

“Fuck those guys,” his dad says immediately, the way he does with anyone he holds a grudge against. “They screwed us over hard a few years back. Shady fuckers.”

“I know,” Jughead says, “That’s what I said.”

“What business does Fred’s kid have with a Python?”

“Supposedly, they had information about the shooter.”

FP suddenly looks more interested, “What about him?”

“Said he was Serpent.” 

“Bull _ shit _ ,” he snaps, “You can’t trust shit they say. Say what you want about the Serpents, but we ain’t ever backed out on a deal; at least our word means something.”

_ Not to most people,  _ Jughead doesn’t say, because when his dad is in a mood like this, he’ll just say  _ fuck most people, _ and get angry about that, too. Still, he’s used to dealing with him angry and drunk. Angry and sober is new territory for him. 

“Fred know his kid talked to a Python?” 

Jughead snorts, “If he did, I don’t think Archie would’ve lived long enough to tell me about it.”

FP shakes his head, still looking pissed, “Don’t you go talking to Pythons, either,” he says. 

Jughead just shrugs vaguely; he wasn’t planning on it, but if the opportunity arose, he doesn’t know if he would say no to it. He wants to find out who the shooter was, too, no matter what Archie might think. 

“I’m serious, Jughead.”

Jughead feels a hand on his wrist and looks his dad in the eye. He’s serious, voice firm the way it was when he told him to stay out of Clifford Blossoms’ drug business fallout, or laid out the way the world worked before his bus ride down to juvie. 

“Okay,” he says, because his dad looks serious but he also looks scared, “I won’t.” 

On his way in, Jughead had run into Fred. He’d seemed embarrassed, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar instead of doing the catching. 

“It’s about time you visited,” Jughead had said, smiling vaguely, “I thought I was gonna have to beg you to come just so he’d stop talking about you.” 

Maybe he was exaggerating a little, because Fred seemed even more embarrassed, rubbing at the back of his head, but he had also seemed younger than he had in a long time. He was walking by himself now, too, which was good. FP had seemed even more embarrassed when Jughead asked him about it, so he didn’t press. He was just glad they were talking again, and not just looking off into the distance whenever they mentioned one another. 

He wonders if that’s why FP is so high-energy, right now. Mr A was almost all healed up, but he walked more carefully, now, and spoke quieter. 

“Who do you think it was?” he asks again, because if he’s ever gonna get an answer, it’s now. He doesn’t know why his dad can’t ever just tell him shit; he’s always been bad at communicating. 

“Why would a Python even claim to know shit,” is his answer, “My guess is even if they didn’t do it, they were involved somehow.” 

Jughead nods in vague agreement. “So, what, I just leave it at that? A guess?”

“Sometimes a guess is the best you can do.”

“Archie’s not gonna leave it as a guess,” he says, _ and neither will I _ , “He’s sure it was a Serpent.” 

“Then you better set his ass straight before he does something stupid like walk into the bar in his varsity jacket again,” FP says, like it’s simple as that. Jughead wonders if this is what it used to be like with he and Fred. FP always said Archie got his we-have-to-do-this- _ now _ mentality from his dad. 

“If it is a Python,” he says, “What’re you gonna do?”

“Me? I’m not gonna do shit.” he leans back in his chair, deceptively casual, “Who knows what my boys’ll do, though; I can’t keep ‘em in line from here.” 

His voice is very calm, and very quiet, and Jughead has always had trouble connecting the image of his dad with the image of the gang leader, but right now he thinks they’re exactly the same person. 

 

Toni makes up with Hospital Girl, even if there was nothing to make up for, Scotty gets a solid A on the calc test, and Jughead has resigned himself to an Archie-less life. Probably a Northside-free, life, too, because all his old friends are Archie’s friends, and if there are sides to choose, they’ll choose his. Not that there are, or that he wants there to be. Sometimes that’s just how it is.

The shitty school library is surprisingly crowded after hours, but the back room isn’t, and it has a nice comfy chair some kid probably dragged in and forgot about, because hardly anyone hangs around to do anything other than smoke or skip class. There’s this shitty old TV stashed away, too, that Scotty got working in freshman year.

Wednesday afternoon and Jughead doesn’t feel like trekking home right now, so he slips into the back room, vending machine snack in his hand, to find it already occupied. 

He almost chokes on the chip in his mouth. 

_ “Cheryl? _ ” he coughs, because what the fuck. Cheryl. Toni’s here too, which isn’t unusual, but Cheryl. Folded in the chair like it was made for her.  _ What the fuck.  _

“Jughead,” she says, and he can’t tell if she’s surprised or not because he’s trying to catch his breath without being too obvious about it. Wow.

They look at each other for a moment. She seems…different. Considering that the last time he really spoke to her was in Veronica’s apartment after she tried to drown herself, that’s probably a good thing. 

“You two know each other?” Toni asks, and he can’t discern whether or not she’s mad at the party-crash. Which she shouldn’t be, because how was he supposed to know Hospital Girl was Cheryl Blossom. Why was her mom in the hospital, anyways? Archie had a lot of nerve saying Jughead never told him anything. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, at the same time Cheryl says, “I slapped him and then he helped pull me out of the river.” 

“It was a misunderstanding,” he clarifies, against Toni’s surprised eyebrow raise, “The first part. She thought my dad killed her brother, so like, she had a right to be mad.”

“Not a right to hit you,” Cheryl says simply, her voice still so surreal in the small room, “But that’s all water under the bridge, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says; some  _ Nightmare On Elm Street _ movie is playing on the shitty TV. A movie date? 

“Thank you for saving my life, by the way,” her voice cuts through Heather Langenkamp’s scream, pitched cool and distant, “You’re the only member of the merry gang I haven’t personally thanked, since you were whisked away to the ‘dark side of the town’, as they call it.”

“Who’s they?” he asks, in the absence of anything else to say.

“They,” she repeats, like it’s obvious, like of course  _ he _ should know what she’s talking about, “The people who say the Serpents are trash and my family is evil.” 

“Oh. They’re assholes.”

“Yes, they are, aren’t they,” she agrees, checking her perfect nails. He imagines her sitting in her huge, gothic bed, carefully painting them herself, the way he sits on his own, carefully typing out his story. 

He looks from her, to Toni, who’s watching the exchange with vague fascination, to the TV, and back to Cheryl, “I didn’t know you were—”

“Gay?” she interrupts, “I’m not.”

“I was gonna say a classic horror fan, but that works, too.”

Cheryl actually seems to smile a bit, eyes flitting up to the screen, “They’re classics,” she shrugs, “You’d be a fool not to appreciate the classics. And I’m not gay.”

“Sexuality is a spectrum,” Toni says helpfully. Cheryl smiles more clearly, this time. 

Jughead nods in vague agreement, “I’m not straight.”

“I know,” Cheryl says, raising her eyebrows at him, but in a surprisingly not-condescending way; his mind flits quickly to the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers poster that used to hang in the projection room, “You have a huge crush on Archie. Who has a huge crush on you. It’s disgusting.”

“Isn’t it?” Toni agrees. 

_ “Well, _ ” he says, because he doesn’t want to talk about this with Cheryl Blossom, no matter how much she might become a part of his life now that she’s a part on Toni’s, “I’ve gotta go, so, have fun with Freddy."

“Jughead,” Cheryl calls when he turns to leave, “Don’t…don’t tell anyone, okay? I’m not—not yet, I don’t—”

“I won’t,” he says, because Cheryl is incredibly untouchable but she’s also incredibly human, “Don’t worry, I’m not they.” 

“I know,” she says, and then, after she’s looked him up and down, “You look good, by the way. The jacket suits you—you’ve moved from Bender to Dean status.”

“Why is it always fuckin’ Bender? I don’t even look like him.”

“Obviously not anymore, knock-off James Dean.”

“You’ve been spending too much time around Veronica,” he says, but tries for a small smile, because that’s probably better than spending too much time around her hospitalized mother, “I’ll see you around, Cheryl.” 

“Yeah,” she says, tilts her head all considering, “I guess you will.”

(Later, Toni texts him: _ interrupt my fuckging date again i dare you _

**_maybe pick a better place next time lol_ **

_ :P also i asked her abt you and she said you’re cool  _

**_she said fucking what now????? fake news_ **

_ ok maybe the word pretentious was used but she’s p pretentious too (but like in a way that makes me wanna give her my credit card number and have her babies) so i trust her. also why are you wearing the same beanie u wore in 3rd grade?  _

**_y are u afraid of committed romantic relationships and dye different colored streaks in ur hair every few months bc u can’t make up ur mind?_ **

_ …….that was cold  _

**_¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_ **

And then, a minute or so later:  **_be careful abt cheryl tho ok? like i don’t hate her or anything but i grew up w her, and she’s not a bad person but she’s been through a lotta shit lately u know?_ **

_ im not in love w her or anything, chill _ , and a moment later: _ i’ll be careful, i always am. i’m a tough mf, i take shit from no man or woman  _

Jughead smiles down at his phone. 

**_I never thought i’d say this but u guys are cute together_ **

_ shut your mouth _

**_I didnt know she was a horror fan, she’s def a keeper_ **

_ go away  _

**_ask her what her fav Halloween is_ **

_ ask her yourself  _

**_u should take her to see that fucking clown movie, u could use the ‘hand over the shoulder disguised as a stretch’ cliche_ **

_ what, no ‘she gets scared and finds comfort in my arms’ cliche?? _

**_im gonna be honest i cant imagine cheryl getting scared at any kind of horror movie. tht girl could make pennywise look like a baby_ **

_ ik isn’t she amazing  _

Jughead rolls his eyes.

**_Gay™_ **

_ you too bitch  _

**_:P_ **

_ also i think this goes w/o saying but if you tell anyone abt this before i give the ok….. _

**_im never telling anyone abt anything ever again_ **

_ good. cheryl also said archie (the boy u love) has been p sad and closed off and stuff lately  _

**_unfortunate_ ** , he types out, ignoring the way his heart skips a beat or two. 

_ she also said she wishes he would get over himself and fix whatever’s bothering him bc it’s been getting annoying _

**_……marry her_ **

_ im telling her you said that _

**_fuck u_ **

He goes to bed thinking about Cheryl taking the time to sneak into Southside High with her designer heels and perfect hair, just to watch an old movie on shitty TV with a Serpent. It’s not something he could’ve ever pictured her doing before. People change, he thinks. And that’s not always bad.) 

 

It happens on a Friday, like it always does, two weeks after The Second Argument. Jughead's foster parents are out again, because they have more of a night life in their late forties than he does at sixteen, and Toni's out, probably doing something with She Who Must Not Be Named. He's tired, anyways, and he has a history test Tuesday to study for, so he's sprawled out on the couch with his notebook and a bowl of microwave popcorn in front of the TV, when Fred's old truck pulls up to the house. 

His head jerks up at the knock on the door, accidentally flicking popcorn onto the floor. 

“Shit,” he curses softly, stooping down to pick it up. There's another knock, a little more insistent this time. He frowns, shoving the bowl into the cushion to keep it upright and pushing himself to his feet. 

He unlocks the front door. When it swings open, Archie is looking back at him. 

Jughead blinks. 

“Hey,” Archie says. The sound of his voice shocks him back to reality a little bit, eyes snapping up to his face. 

“Hey,” Jughead says.

Archie shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and glances around, like he's afraid to meet Jughead's eyes. Jughead doesn't know what he's afraid of, but he thinks he might be afraid of the same thing. He looks remarkably out of place. Archie shivers. 

“Do you…wanna come inside?” he asks, when the silence gets to be too much. 

“Oh, uh—sure, yeah, sure.”

Jughead lets the door swing open further, and Archie steps in wordlessly. Jughead wonders if he should be not letting him in, and like, yelling at him instead, but he’s never been very well-versed in these things. He heads back to the couch, and hears Archie follow slowly behind him. 

“It’s a nice place,” Archie says, sitting stiffly on the other side of the couch, far enough away that they aren’t touching. Jughead feels vaguely disappointed. 

“Thanks,” he says.

“Are they not here? Your foster parents, I mean.”

Jughead shakes his head, “They went out somewhere.”

“Oh, cool, where?”

“Archie, I don’t think you’re really interested in where my foster parents went out to eat.”

Archie flushes a little; he’s not usually one for dancing around the point. 

“What’re you doing here?” Jughead asks when he says nothing, “You wait two weeks and then show up out of nowhere.”

“I just,” Archie huffs, “I didn’t know what to say.”

“And you do now?”

“Not really.”

Jughead snorts to hide his anxiety. He’d much rather Archie reject whatever the hell Jughead offered him over the phone, but Archie’s always been too nice for that, even when he’s mad. 

“You still mad at me?” he asks, just to clarify that point.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Archie says, running a hand through his hair, body angled towards him, “I don’t think so. I  _ was _ …”

“No shit,”

“But I don’t think I am anymore,” he continues, ignoring the interruption. 

“Took you a while.”

Archie shrugs bashfully, which shouldn’t be as endearing as it is, especially while Jughead isn’t sure of whether or not he should be angry. “Lots of stuff takes me a while. I just…had to think.”

“About what?” he asks, dreading the answer.

“About the shit I said, and the shit you said, and the Serpents, and,” Archie finally looks at him, “and what you sent me.” 

“Right,” Jughead breathes out, rubbing at his eyes, “That.”

“Yeah,” Archie agrees, “That.” 

“Took you two weeks to think about it?”

“Yeah,” he says; at least he’s being honest. “Gave me a lot to think about.”

“So, what, this the part where you let me down gently? Or tell me to fuck off forever? If I get a choice, could you do the second one, ‘cause I don’t think I could handle you being nice about it.”

Archie gets this look on his face, too fast to read before it’s gone, and he’s leaning forward, “No, no, that’s not—that’s not what I’m here for.”

“What’re you here for, then?” 

“I just—I wanted to talk to you.’

“About what?”

“About things.”

Despite his beating heart and the emotion in Archie’s eyes, he huffs a disbelieving laugh, “Things? Like what?”

Archie shrugs, shoulders losing their tension like Jughead’s laugh was the cue to let it all out, “Like about how much of a jerk I was.”

“You were a jerk,” Jughead agrees, more fondly than he would’ve liked, because he’s trying to be stone cold and shit. “So was I.”

“Not as much of a jerk.”

“It’s not a contest,” Jughead laughs lightly, “We were both assholes, I get it.”

Archie fiddles with the ends of his sleeves the way he does when he’s embarrassed, “I thought about it a lot. And I was…being unfair, I guess. Asking you to choose sides, and—getting mad when you didn’t want to and all that. I know it’s been hard for you, too.”

Jughead resists the urge to move closer, “I get why you were mad,” he admits. 

Archie shakes his head adamantly, inching subconsciously closer, “No, you don’t, and I didn’t either, but—think I do now.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” a very long pause, during which Archie looks around the entire room like he hasn’t done so three times already, “I think I was just…I don’t know, jealous?”

_“Jealous?”_ Jughead repeats, incredulous. 

“I don’t know,” Archie says again, flushing lightly, “It was just like—everything changed so quick, y’know? And suddenly you’re on the other side of town, and you’re making all these new friends, who get to like, see you all the time, and I don’t, and it’s— _ weird _ , it was weird, ‘cause you were always  _ there _ and then you weren’t.” 

Jughead is quiet for a long moment, searching Archie’s face for god knows what. “Just cause I made new friends, doesn’t mean I don’t like you anymore.”

“I know,” Archie says, frustrated, “But you seemed so  _ happy _ with them, over there, as a Serpent, and I guess I realized how like, different we are? Like of course I’ve noticed before, but it never mattered before.”

“It still doesn’t matter,”

“It matters ‘cause I could never make you that happy.” 

Jughead almost wants to laugh, but if he did he thinks he might cry, too, “What the fuck?” he asks, watches Archie flinch back in surprise, “You’ve been my best friend for like, ten years, Arch; you make me happy all the fucking time.” 

“I ditched you for a teacher who didn’t care about me,” he says, “And then I ditched you ‘cause you were happy with other people, that’s pretty fucked up—like, I should be happy if _ you’re  _ happy, right?” 

“I mean, I’m not really the best person to ask about this,” Jughead says, which just makes Archie seem more anxious, “but I think it’s a pretty normal reaction. People aren’t perfect. Everyone wants to be liked." 

Archie still looks vaguely guilty, so, “Archie,” he says, drawing his attention, “I’m never not gonna want to be your friend, remember? How many times am I gonna have to tell you that?”

Archie shrugs, “Same about of times I’m gonna have to tell you there’s nothing wrong with you, probably.” 

Jughead does laugh, then, at the same time he feels his stomach drop. “You really read it.”

“I did,” Archie says, voice much softer than before. Fuck, Jughead thinks. Great.

“I was kinda hoping you were mad enough to ignore it.”

“It took me a day or two to click on it,” he admits. Jughead laughs weakly.

“What d’you think, should I get it published?”

Archie shakes his head a little, which, okay, he’s not sure what that means but it can’t be good. “It’d make a shitty—what’re they called, autobiographies?”

“Why’s that?” 

“You’re not even famous, yet."

Jughead huffs a soft laugh that probably sounds like more of a vague sob, “Fuck you.”

Archie smiles cautiously; looks at him for a long moment. Jughead hears the ticking of the clock on the far wall, before, “I think I’d be okay with holding your hand.”

“What?” Jughead asks, suddenly breathless.

“You said you didn’t know how to ask. But I…I do want to. Hold your hand, if you’re still up for it.” 

“You like girls,” Jughead says, but it comes out as more of a question, trying to stop his heart from beating right out of his chest and spilling all over the floor. 

“I like you, too,” Archie says, so earnest it almost hurts. 

Jughead shakes his head, “That’s not true.”

“How would you know?” he teases lightly, “You never asked me.” 

_ Good fucking point _ , he would say if he could say anything. He feels Archie’s fingers brushing up softly against his own— _ when had he gotten so close?  _ he wonders vaguely—and suddenly that’s all he can focus on. 

Almost instinctively, he lets his hand be coaxed open where it’s curled into a fist, lets Archie’s fingers slide in and lace together with his own—slow, like he doesn’t wanna scare him away. He watches the contrast in vague fascination: Jughead’s fingers are longer, but Archie’s hand is bigger. Warmer. Calloused, from years of football. 

Wow.

“Wow,” he says. Archie laughs a little.

“That’s it?”

“I mean,” Jughead gives a little disbelieving laugh, “Do you—are you for real? ‘Cause like, I’ve been in—I’ve—for a while, now.”

“How long is a while?” Archie grins.

“Fuck you, that’s how long,” Jughead tries to snap, but he’s smiling, too, so it’s not as effective as it could’ve been. He jumps a bit when he feels Archie’s hand against his neck, big and warm and calloused against his pulse. 

“This okay?” Archie asks softly, like he really means it. Jughead swallows, nods. Breathes deep when his hand slides up and up, a thumb softly cradling his jaw. The TV is still on in the background. Vaguely, Jughead wonders if this is how all the girls Archie’s kissed over the years have felt: jumpy, nervous. Fucking electrified. Fucking terrified. 

Archie leans in, eyes fixed on Jughead’s mouth, but then stops short, Jughead’s hand pressed haltingly against his chest. 

“Sorry,” Jughead says, shivering as Archie’s hand slides back down his neck, “Sorry, I just—”

“No, it’s fine,” Archie says quickly.

“It’s just that I don’t—”

“I know, it’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“It’s not that I don’t  _ want _ to, y’know? I just don’t know if I—”

“Jug,” he says, a warm hand on his shaking wrist, “It’s fine.”

“Yeah?” he asks, heart thrumming beneath his skin. 

“Yeah,” Archie says softly.

“You like kissing, though. Most people—” he cuts himself off, biting his tongue.

“Well, you’re not most people,” Archie says, rubbing circles into Jughead’s palm, “You’re Jughead.”  

Jughead swallows. His throat is very dry, he notices. “And you’re Archie,” he says, “You’re…better than this.” _You're fucking golden, you're going places, you have all the potential in the world inside you._

“Better than what, you?” Jughead shrugs, not meeting his eye, “I’ve never been better than you. Sometimes I think you’re the best person here. Like, one of those filters that catches sand in water—you catch all the bad stuff and let the good stuff through for everybody else.” 

“That a line in one of your songs?” he asks, just to expel the heavy air from his lungs.

“No,” Archie says, “But it should be.”

“You saying you write songs about me, Andrews?” he asks, catching his eye.

Archie laughs, something surprisingly shy, like he hasn’t seen since they were kids introducing themselves in the sandbox, “I haven’t actually like, put anything to music yet, but…”

“You’re fucking with me,” Jughead says, failing to hold back a smile.

“Shut up, you have a whole doc thing saved on your computer about me.”

“Fuck off,” he shoots back, but Archie is smiling, “It’s not only about you.”

“Yeah, Veronica says I have to work on that,” he sighs, and Jughead laughs. 

He feels light, weightless, like he might float away if it wasn’t for Archie’s grip on his wrist. 

“Archie,” he says, smile fading from his face at the thought, “Are you serious? Like, I’ve watched you date our whole lives—I’m not trying to be an asshole, but you get crushes at the snap of a finger and lose them just as quick. Your dad was the same way, apparently.” he adds as an afterthought. FP does a lot of reminiscing when he’s drunk. 

“I know,” Archie says, sounding vaguely embarrassed; at least he’s self-aware, Jughead thinks, “But I don’t—I don’t think this is like that. I don’t…I lived life without you there for two whole weeks and it  _ sucked _ . I don’t wanna lose you like that.”

“Okay,  _ Romeo _ ,” he says, and Archie flicks him. 

“I’m serious. I don’t really know where to like,  _ go _ from here, but I know I wanna try.” 

“What, like—?” he cuts himself off, because he does not wanna be the first one to go down that road. Also, it’s embarrassing. 

“Like what?” Archie catches him, smiling a little.

“I don’t know, like…boy…friends?”

“You wanna be my boyfriend?” Archie asks, and Jughead didn’t really expect condescension but he also didn’t expect something verging on excitement, either. He feels himself flush. 

“Maybe,” he says, trying and failing for casual, “Kind of, if that’s—if you want that, too.”

“Hell yeah I do,” Archie says adamantly, like it won't fuck up his reputation and drag him down. 

Jughead should put a stop to this, maybe, but instead he says, “For real?”

“For real,” Archie insists. 

“Oh,” he says, feeling very out of his depth, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Archie repeats, a smile spreading slowly across his face.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, and then, because they're going all out on the cliches tonight, “Ask me.”

“Jug,” he says, “Will you be my boyfriend?” 

“Sure,” Jughead says with a shrug, and Archie laughs. 

Some old TV show theme song plays in the background. They still aren't sure who the shooter is. The popcorn is all over the floor. 

He feels like things will be okay. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen.........don't @ me abt my cheryl characterization she's a hard character to grasp i dont wanna do her dirty.........but if i was confident in my characterization u KNOW i would write ballads and shit abt her 
> 
> anyway!!!! comments help keep me young and radiant in these trying times and send good vibes to the s2 premiere.........pls let it be good
> 
> (if u wanna @ me abt cheryl do it on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) lmao)


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